


Unconventional Roommates

by percywinchester27



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Roommates, Suspence, flangst, roommate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/percywinchester27/pseuds/percywinchester27
Summary: Now that his brother is at Stanford, for the first time in his life, Dean does something for himself. He takes a step towards chasing his own dreams and moves away from Lawrence to start college and pursue Mechanical Engineering. It is both thrilling and scary at the same time to start a whole new life in a new place. Only catch, in this unknown town, he is stuck with the MOST infuriating female on the planet- the roommate from hell!
Relationships: Castiel/Meg Masters, Dean Winchester/Reader, Dean Winchester/You, Ellen Harvelle/Bobby Singer, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Comments: 90
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that you guys like it :)

Dean knew it was going to be tiring. Hell, he’d expected it to be absolutely exhausting. But even then he’d been looking forward to it, because as exhausting as it was, it was also exhilarating, because for the first time in forever, when you make that one decision for yourself and yourself only, it was going to feel like your heart itself was bursting out for your chest, and Dean knew that, but he still couldn’t help feeling a little overwhelmed. He’d spent all of his life in Lawrence, barely ever stepped foot outside of Kansas. So, this was huge for him.

After two long days spent in packing, loading, travelling, and finally unloading, Dean was here, in front of what was going to be his home for the next three years of college.

College. There was that word again. It was still hard to believe that he’d finally done it. Even as he hoisted the last box over his shoulders and laboriously walked up one stair at a time to the third floor apartment, he couldn’t tame the feeling that his stomach was in knots. He’d finally snipped all ties with his past and took that one step to move forward. It felt promising, wondrous and exciting, but, at the same time,it was scary and nerve racking.

His best friend would tell him that’s how it’s supposed to be, and to some extent Dean agreed, but there was no denying that starting this new life was hard. For one, he knew nothing about how to go about living like this. For all his life, as long as he could remember, Dean only followed the one rule- Keep your head down. Work hard. Protect Sammy. He was all Dean had and it was only in the past year that Dean had realized that looking after Sam had given his life a purpose and now that Sam was gone, there wasn’t much to his it.

Yes, the beer in the evening with Benny allowed him to let loose after a day spent repairing cars in the hot sun. Sometimes, he’d even get himself a girl to forget the days wears along the curves of her body for one night. But even though Dean had spent more than half of his life working at the Turner garage, sometimes even overnight to make enough to support Sam and himself, he had never regretted it. Ever. Because Sam was worth every drop of his sweat.

The kid had been good at school from the get go, and it didn’t surprise Dean when he earned that full ride to Stanford. Sam had been about as good a brother as Dean could have wished for. He cooked sometimes and even helped at Rufus’ garage when he could. In fact, it had been Sam who had convinced Dean to sell the old house and go chase the college dreams he’d never even dared to dream. Now that Dean was here without Sam it felt a little hollow.

After heaving the last of his boxes in what would be his room, Dean made his way downstairs to his best friend who was sifting through the truck to see if there was any more luggage left.

“All good?” Benny asked.

“Yeah.” Dean huffed. “I think I’ve got it all in there now.”

“It’s a great apartment.”

Benny wasn’t wrong. The apartment overlooked a lot of low slung building rooftops and the shore beyond it. Other than the living room, it had two bedrooms, one with and one without an attached bath. The landlord had warned Dean that the other tenant, a girl of about his age, she’d described, kept to herself and hated people overstepping her personal space.

It had been pretty clear with the “Keep out” that was painted in bold red on the master bedroom door. Dean didn’t mind having to use the other common bathroom. In fact, the way the landlord had described the tenant, he was pretty sure she didn’t step out of her room anyway. There had been no one in there all of the morning that he’d spent shifting things. Maybe he’d get to meet his roommate in the evening.

“Do you want to grab a bite?” Dean asked.

“Sure thing!”

He and Benny headed to what looked like a comfortable restaurant named Ellen’s, that was just on the opposite side of the street and half a block down.

“So,” Benny said, eyeing his eggs. “Think you’ll be fine here?”

“Yeah,” Dean shrugged, trying to curb the panic he was starting to feel inside now.

Benny had a knowing look in his eyes. “Look, man, this is good for you. You’re just 24 years old and all you’ve done your whole life is work, work and work harder. There’s nothing left in Lawrence now that Sam is at Stanford and-”

“Yeah, I know. But this feels weird. College? Studying? You know that’s never been me.”

Benny shook his head. “That’s exactly you, Winchester. You were the smartest kid in out class. Just because you spent more time with grease on your hand instead of books doesn’t not make this your thing.”

When Dean still looked unconvinced, he continued. “You know this is a good college. They didn’t accept you for nothing. I’m sure you know more about automobile engineering that any snot-nosed kid in the freaking university.”

Dean laughed, trying to play it off.

“I’m serious,” Benny urged. “This is your chance to do something for yourself. Sam was right in asking you to sell off the old house.”

“It doesn’t feel right to spend all that money here,” Dean gestured around himself. “Sammy has a share, too.”

“Kid wouldn’t even have had anything to eat if it weren’t for you. He’s not doing you a favor by letting you use up that money, and he knows it. You raised him well.”

It was no point arguing with Benny, but even after all expenses were covered, it left a decent amount in the bank should Sam ever need it.

“This is good stuff, man,” Benny smiled. “I’ve always wanted something like this for you. I’ll miss you at the Garage though, and Ol’ Rufus would never say it to your face, but he just lost his best man.”

“I’ll miss you too, man,” Dean hugged Benny tight, then clapped him on the shoulder as they separated.

It was hard to watch him climb into the truck and drive back. Dean spent the rest of the evening walking through the town, getting to know what was where. It took his mind off of the ball in his stomach. Eventually, Dean walked back into the building, gliding his hand over the hood of his beloved Impala as he passed her in the parking lot.

His mind was buzzing with nervousness and thoughts about tomorrow as he made his way upstairs, of course the lift was out of work when he had to shift all his stuff. Wanting nothing more than to just fall into his bed and sleep it off, Dean pushed the door of his apartment.

Inside, huddled on the sofa, a girl was softly weeping into her hands. Dean couldn’t get much of an estimation of how she looked, because while most of her face was covered by her fingers, and her head was covered in a dark grey beanie, even her ears were barely visible. She sat cross-legged along the edge of the sofa, wearing a knitted black sweater and loosely fitting tracks.

Just seeing her huddled, her shoulders hunched inwards, trying her best to wipe her face clean, an odd protective instinct surged through him. Without thinking, he reached out to touch her shoulder, thinking of something, anything that would comfort her.

However, the moment he touched her, she looked up, and Dean knew he would never ever forget the brilliant Y/H/C eyes that met his. He could have sworn that it felt like they were seeing into the depth of his soul, seeing him for exactly who he was- the good, the bad, all of it. They were fierce but so, so brilliant. More than that, they were without fail the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.

So shocked was he, that Dean didn’t look beyond the fierceness to see that they were furious.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She hissed. “Get your hand off me!”

“W-What?” Dean was bewildered, but he removed his hand all the same. Her voice was as unusual as the eyes. It was husky and deep. Unique.

“Who do you think you are barging in like that?” She glared. Dean caught on quickly, annoyed now.

“I’m the other tenant. I paid for the room!”

“And that doesn’t give you a right to touch me.”

The nerve!

“Lady, you were bawling your eyes out right now. I was worried.”

She scoffed, and for some reason it annoyed Dean more than it should have. Mostly because it was an impressive scoff. He didn’t even know scoffs could be impressive, but this one seemed like it was delivered by a professional actor with years of stage experience and it irked him to no end.

“I was watching the movie, Romeo!”

Only then did Dean realise that the TV was on. The last of Harry met Sally, where the couples were interviewed was being played.

“You just ruined the movie for me!”

Dean could almost feel the steam coming out of his ears. “I was just trying to look out for you. And don’t you ever call me that again.”

“Alright, _Romeo!_ But I ain’t no damsel in distress. Keep those hands to yourself.”

He balled his fists. Mad at himself for being so mad. Why was she getting on his nerves? So she’d assumed him to be some sort of sleazeball, but it wouldn’t be the first time. His leather jacket and greasy jeans had always made people assume all the wrong things. So, why was this bothering him now?

The answer presented itself just as quickly. Because he had been genuinely worried if she was hurt, but, also, because he had to share a roof with this girl from now on.

“Whatcha looking at?” She asked looking smug, like his momentary silence had proven her point or something.

“Nothing,” Dean huffed. “Please do continue with your moping bout. Seems like your kinda thing. Don’t let me interrupt your favorite past-time.”

“Stay out of my business,” she said, standing up, an empty box of Pizza that had been resting on her lap clattered to the floor.

“You could be a freaking serial killer and I couldn’t care less, as long as you don’t put the dead bodies in the fridge, honey!”

She narrowed her eyes then stormed towards her room. Just before she could dash in, she turned and yelled. “And stay out of my fucking room.”

She slammed the door so hard in her wake that the hinges rattled, and Dean was left to wonder what the hell had he walked into.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean woke up late. Of frigging course.

He had set an alarm for 7, but somehow today had to be the lucky day when it didn’t go off. Dean took the quickest shower of his life, threw on the first clothes his hands landed on in the unsorted pile of boxes, grabbed a bag and made his way out of the apartment, not paying a second glance to the door opposite to his.

In the hindsight, it was probably all her fault. Even thinking about her made Dean clench his teeth, and what bothered him more was that he didn’t know why he was so bothered. For crying out loud, he didn’t even know her name.

As he put his car on the road, another thought occured to him, but Dean didn’t want to accept that girl could have been even a little helpful to him after all. But the truth was, if it hadn’t been for her, he’d have spent the whole night worrying about today, and the University. However, the legendary conversation with her had driven everything out of his mind, and he’d spent what little time he had been awake, rerunning the whole thing in his head and regretting over the comebacks he could have used instead.

But that also meant he had had a better sleep. Childishly, Dean was satisfied again that he could, at least, blame her for oversleeping. Then, he was annoyed about how stupid the whole deal was.

His first thought as he parked his baby was how daunting and intimidating the campus was. It was probably bigger than the part of Lawrence he’d grown up in, but that also meant it was going to be hard to navigate his way around. Late as he was, he quickly got out of the car and hurried to the student’s council office, asking his way around. The kid working the front desk was about Sam’s age. He gave Dean a once over, then asked him to wait in the seating area.

Dean, however, couldn’t sit still. He could see that his feet tapping continuously on the linoleum was annoying the counter guy, but that made him more nervous if anything. Everything about the place, the laughing youngsters, the fat books, the counter guy with his nerd glasses was making Dean feel out of place. This wasn’t him. What if he didn’t belong? What if this was all a big stupid mistake?

“Dean Winchester?”

Dean looked up to see a guy with deep blue eyes and black hair smiling down on him.

“That’s me.” Dean stood up.

“My name is Castiel Novak,” he said, offering his hand. “You can call me Cas, and I’m your student counselor.”

Dean shook his hand, feeling little better. The guy was, at least, his age if not a little older.

“C'mon. This way,” Cas led him.

They walked along the main building as Cas checked up on the papers he was carrying. “So, this says you’re from Lawrence, Kansas and you’re enrolled in Mechanical Engineering with a major in Automobiles Design.”

“Yep!”

“That’s cool, man.” Cas commended. “And directly into the second year?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, not knowing what else to say.

“This says,” Cas read on. “That you were a teaching assistant in the Mech. Department at the community college there for three years? Without a degree?”

Dean shrugged. “It wasn’t official.”

Truth was, it was more money. On the off chance that Sam hadn’t scored that scholarship, there had to be some extra money, right? So, Dean had worked part time at the Automobile Lab in the community college for that. It was no big deal. He knew quite a lot about how cars worked from working at Rufus’. Cas’ admiration was making him a little uncomfortable though.

“So, that’s what got you directly into the second year, I see,” Cas concluded. “This is good stuff.”

Dean nodded again, choosing to stay quiet.

“Alright,” Cas pointed to a building on the left. “That is the auditorium. Beyond that the library. What we just passed was the visitor’s centre. I’m sure you figured that out for yourself.” Cas smiled genially and Dean immediately took a liking to him.

“Are you an engineering student, too?” Dean asked. Life would be easier knowing that there was at least one person you knew.

Cas, however, laughed. “Hardly. I’m a journalism major. I’m the assistant editor at the college newspaper, too.” Then something seemed to hit him. “Tell you what? You should totally join the newspaper. Anyway, you have to take an additional activity that isn’t part of your course work for the extra credits. We could use someone new.”

“Oh, hell no!” Dean put his hands up. The idea that he was any good with words was downright laughable. “I can’t write to save my life.”

“But that’s the thing,” Cas pursued. “You don’t have to write. How good are you with a camera?”

“Not bad,” Dean said cautiously. Sam had bought him a good camera as a gift for his birthday this year. He’d fumbled around with it, mostly happy with his pictures. But what did he know of critical photography?

“You should drop some of them at the newspaper office. Maybe it’s something you’ll find useful,” he hinted. “As it is I’m guessing you have a lot to catch up with since you’re a week late and joining in the advance class.”

The rest of the campus tour was pretty interesting. Cas was meticulous about showing him every building. Giving him the inside scoop on the faculty and the general gossip about students. Dean was relieved to know that students his age weren’t actually uncommon. That in fact, most of his class might be older than he was. Cas also told him that Mech. department had a couple of great kids he could definitely hang out with.

“Just think over the photography thing,” Cas reminded him as he dropped Dean off in front of the Automobile Workshop. “Go find Professor Barnes in there. She’s good. And if you need anything at all, you have my number. Just give me call. We all hang out in the quadrangle after classes, drop by if you want.”

“I’ll remember that,” Dean nodded gratefully.

Professor Pamela Barnes was younger than Dean had expected, also way more attractive, but one look at her and it was clear that she was a no nonsense woman. She ran Dean through his schedule, going through his transcripts and work experience, but unlike Cas, her face showed no change in expression. There was no saying what she thought about him.

All she said was that she expected Dean to know his subjects because he had already been through them.

All in all, when Dean stepped out of the building and finally fell into his car, he decided that the day hadn’t been a failure. Even though he still wasn’t sure how well he’d fit in, he was sure that he, at least, wanted to try. Stepping into that workshop had made all the difference for him. One look around and he was home. He knew that stuff, and unlike Lawrence, here, he was allowed to make mistakes, because he was learning. Just like everyone else and that feeling was… thrilling.

Smiling to himself, he put the car in reverse, only to halt as his phone rang.

He smiled once more at the name flashing on the screen before pressing the answer button.

“Hey there, Sammy.”

“Hey there, college boy!”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“Stop rolling your eyes,” Sam said. “I know you are.”

Dean laughed. It was so good to hear his brother’s voice.

“How’s it going?” Sam asked.

Dean shrugged, then remembered that Sam couldn’t see it. “It’s good. Intimidating, but it looks interesting so far.”

“You’re a freaking genius, Dean,” Sam urged. “One day you’re going to see that, too. Maybe this place will help with that.”

“We’ll see.”

Sam hesitated. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you about.”

“Shoot.” Why did he sound so nervous? Was he okay?

“Well…” Sam tarried. “It’s actually a girl.”

“I’ll be damned,” Dean grinned. “You got yourself a girlfriend!”

“Hardly,” Sam huffed.

“What’s her name?”

“Jessica,” Sam said, then added. “She’s beautiful.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Of course she is. You even talk to her yet?”

Silence.

“Figured,” Dean muttered. “Go, talk to her, you dumbass! Paralyzing yourself into a zombie isn’t very attractive.”

“Shut up!”

“You know it’s true. Just go talk to her. Ask her out on a date or something.”

“Alright.” Dean could hear Sam’s smile on the other end. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too.” The call ended and Dean pocketed the phone with a smile on his face.

By the time Dean reached the apartment, and opened the door, all his thoughts were dedicated to unpacking those boxes and finally settling in with some hint of permanency, but all those thoughts went out the moment he entered the living room. His roommate was passed out on the sofa. The TV was running a WWE match in the background while the girl was lying on her stomach, one hand under her head, the falling down to the floor over the edge of the sofa. A brown beanie covered her head today but the knitted sweater from yesterday was back. She had the most peaceful expression on her face. Innocent and child-like. A smile that was somehow enticing.

Then the wrestler on the TV slammed another wrestler onto the floor with a loud bang and she sat up straight, eyes wide, scanning one side then other quickly till they found him and then narrowed quickly.

“Why were you staring at me sleeping, you creep?”

“I just got in!” Dean defended.

“That’s exactly what a creep would say!”

He could actually feel his blood starting to boil. “Lady, I don’t know who the fuck pisses in your cheerios every morning, but it ain’t me, so stop making me into something that I’m not. Jesus!”

She looked down under the pretense of adjusting her beanie and muttered from the corner of her mouth, so quietly that he barely heard it. “That’s what a creep would say.”

“Okay, enough of this crap,” he said, walking close to her so he was almost in her face. “What’s your problem with me?” Asking her upfront would, at least, get him some answers, because the prospect of facing the roommate from hell throughout the whole weekend was honestly disturbing.

“Problem? Problem?” She asked, standing up to face him. Despite being smaller than him in size and height, she demanded attention just by her stature. “It’s you, Romeo! Didn’t your mother teach you that invading women’s personal space is creepy?”

Dean went stoned faced. There was nothing more to say to her.

He turned around and walked back to his room, shutting the door behind him. But in the split second, just before he turned, he saw the anger from her eyes slip, replaced by surprise. She’d expected him to come up with a sassier retort, but the complete lack of response had caught her off guard.

Dean couldn’t care less. She hadn’t exactly hit where it hurt, because he knew he wasn’t being creepy, and that she was being weird and unreasonable. But there was some truth to her last sentence. His mother hadn’t been around to teach him much about life.

Sam did it sometimes. Unknowingly, he’d say something that gave away how little attachment he felt towards their mom, and Dean would snap at him. She had been a good woman and she’d loved Sam. Of course, he barely even remembered her, being only six months old when she’d passed away, but Dean did. And then he wondered which of the two situations was better, remembering some of it, or not remembering anything at all.

But this girl wasn’t Sam, she didn’t know what had happened, so Dean couldn’t even snap at her. Sure he was mad at her for being so difficult, but he couldn’t logically hold her to what she’d said. She simply didn’t know better.

Lying in the half-made bed with boxes all around, Dean stared at the ceiling for a long time as Metallica blasted through the earphones. He missed home. He missed his life from two years ago when Sam was around, when he’d known what to expect out of his life the next day. But Sam was in Stanford now living his life, and as hard as the change was for him, this was his life now.

The chords of Nothing else matters flowed through him and Dean closed his eyes

_I never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
All these words I don’t just say  
And nothing else matters…_

The light was shining too brightly through the window, and his first thought was remembering why there were no curtains. Groggily, he opened his eyes, staring out of the window to the beautiful view of the sea. This is good, he reassured himself.

He reached for his watch that was lying on the floor and squinted at it. 10:35.

“Damn it!” Dean cursed, sitting up in the bed. Then he remembered that it was a Saturday, he didn’t have any classes today.

Running a hand over his face, Dean made his way to the bathroom. As his hand reached out to close the door, his fingers touched a paper. Curious, he looked around to see a single piece of parchment taped to the door. Written on it in a pointy handwriting was a single word.

“SORRY.”

Astonished, Dean looked at the red door on the opposite side, it was locked. She wasn’t home.

He smiled to himself, thinking maybe, just maybe life here wouldn’t be that bad.


	3. Chapter 3

The next week passed so fast that Dean barely had time to breathe. Most of his Saturday was spent in sorting through the boxes and putting his stuff where it belonged. It helped that there wasn’t much to take care of- some clothes, his old books, and an assortment of other ordinary stuff. Dean did his best to make the room resemble the one he had in Lawrence. The familiarity made him more at ease.What made it most like home were the two pictures that were propped on the side table below the lamp. One was his mom holding him when he was 4, and the other a candid of him and Sam from when they were laughing at some corny joke. The first had remained by his bed for as long as Dean could remember and the second was his accomplishment in life.

On Sunday he’d stepped out to buy the stuff he needed, curtains and food stuff. Looking at the kitchenette that was attached to the living room, it didn’t look like his roommate was the cooking type. Most of the utensils were unused and fridge had random ‘heat and eat’ fast food. So she mostly ate out, Dean concluded. But as long as he didn’t have a job, eating out everyday wasn’t going to be feasible for him.

Incidentally, he hadn’t seen the girl all of Saturday. She’d been out all night and if she’d even returned home for a couple of hours in the day, Dean had been unaware, because come nightfall, her room was locked again.

Dean didn’t wait up for her. Sure, he was intrigued about what was up with her, but he was glad that his weekend had been peaceful enough, allowing him to settle in. Any altercation would have only served in distracting him more.

When all was said and done, on Sunday evening, Dean took down a bucket full of soapy water and washed baby. She’d been truly his home for the longest time. In the last few years, he and Sam had road tripped extensively, going around the country, living from cheap motel to another. They couldn’t afford the expensive places, but they always had her with all the memories and wears. Washing her brought some sense of calm to him over the chaos that was going to be the next day.

It was chaos.

At least this time, Dean managed to reach there on time. The fact that everyone was looking at him made him conscious. They had all known each other for a year now, and he was new. The next two days were spent in chasing the crazy schedule. From lectures to workshop, and back home to catch up on all that he’d missed from the last years. The faculty were mostly curious about his appearance on the scene, all that did was lead them on to give him more work. All except professor Barnes, who treated him like every other student- dispassionately. But for a change, it was a welcome relief.

There was also the dick professor, as is the case with every college. His name was Professor Zachariah. He, however, seemed to take an instant disliking to Dean and set him a paper due Friday. Dean was surprised to see that some people in the class actually looked mutinous about how unfair it was that he’d have to submit an assignment that huge within a week.

What was even more astonishing was the number of his classmates who came up to him offering help. Nothing like common loathing to bring people together.

Despite the workload, trying to cope with his life, Dean hadn’t forgotten about getting a job. He found Cas, who was hanging out with some friends after his lectures on Tuesday.

“Hey, man. You got a couple of minutes?”

“Sure thing, Dean,” Cas smiled. “How’s it going?”

“Zach is whipping his ass for no reason, that’s how it’s going,” said a brunette who walked up from behind and wrapped an arm around Cas’ waist. Dean recognized her from his class.

“No,” Cas winced. “He’s a jerk, that Zach. Don’t let him get to you.”

“Pretty boy here annoyed him more for some reason,” she commented. “Maybe it’s cause he _is_ pretty.”

“This is my girlfriend Meg,” Cas introduced. “I believe you’ve met her in class.”

Dean nodded, giving Meg a smile. “Listen, I was wondering if you had any clue about jobs around here.”

“Oh.” Cas took a minute to consider. “This is mostly a college town, so there’s not much excitement in the job department. How good are you at bartending?”

“I know my drinks,” Dean shrugged. He’d learn quickly if he took that job up.

“Wait! I have the perfect job for you,” Cas said, excited. “Meet me at the gate in 10 minutes.”

“Alright.”

Cas rode a creaky motorbike, and Dean had to consider if the vehicle was up to carrying the weight of two full grown men as he climbed behind him. He observed the directions carefully as Cas rode on, sharing his sympathies for all the work Dean had to go through. Apparently, Meg had kept Cas posted about all of Dean’s adventures and misadventures.

“We’re here,” said Cas, coming to a standstill in front of an old auto body shop.

“You’re kidding me!” Dean exulted. “A mechanic? Man, you’re awesome.”

Cas’ eyebrows furrowed. “They don’t need a mechanic as of now. I think Bobby has boys for that. He does need a handyman though. It’s a side business.”

“That works!” This was way better than anything he could have managed on his own.

“Alright, let’s go!”

Bobby seemed to be a grumpy man in his 50’s. He wore a baseball cap and an old tan jacket over a flannel. He was willing to give Dean the job, his only condition being that the pay would depend on how many leaks he fixed. It worked for Dean as well, because it was mostly an on call job, that gave him the free time to get his college stuff done. When Bobby found out that Dean was a student at the university, he offered him an empty office where he could study in the free hours when there was nothing to take care of.

Dean sincerely offered to do extra hours on bikes, cars and such, and Bobby clapped a hand on his shoulder, smiling. Later, Cas told him that it was the first time he had seen Bobby smile.

And it wasn’t that Dean didn’t struggle, mostly because he was rusty and not used to this life, but after barely sleeping for the next two days and three nights, his paper was ready. More importantly, Dean was happy about how it had turned out.

In fact, he was so pumped, that come Friday morning, Dean left in such hurry, he completely forgot the assignment he’d been slogging over at the table on his room. He only realized where it was when he opened his bag in the classroom.

“Son of a bitch,” he swore, dashing out the way he came. At the doorway, he crashed into Meg.

“Where you off to, boy?” She laughed.

“I forgot the assignment.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she cursed, too. “Just make sure you’re back before his lecture at 12.”

“Yeah,” Dean huffed. “I still got almost an hour and half.”

“Go!” She urged and Dean rushed off, internally kicking himself for leaving it back home.

Of course, the roads had to be blown up with traffic.

“C'mon on. C'mon on. C'mon on,” Dean muttered under his breath as he honked while being stranded behind a suburban. But as bad as it got, the traffic slowly eased out and Dean was able to turn onto the street that lead towards the apartment. He parked the car on the curb and ran up two stairs at a time till he was panting in front of the door.

Hurriedly, he put a hand in his pocket to fish out the key and rammed it into the keyhole, twisting it. The door did not budge.

“What the hell?”

He tried it again, and again but key barely even turned in the hole. The door was bolted from the inside.

“Damn it!” He swore then banged the door with both his hands. “Open up.”

“C'mon, woman! Open the damn door,” He yelled.

Dean tried repeatedly, banging hard, yelling for the girl to open the door, but the hard wood stayed put.

There was only one thing to do. Dean ran back down, till he was near the southern exist, then circled to the back of the building which held the window to her room.

What was he going to shout? He didn’t even know her name.

“Hey!” He yelled towards the open window on the 4th floor. “Lady in 401. Open the frickin’ door.” But it was a wasted effort. He wasn’t even sure if his voice was reaching her. Thinking it would be a better idea if he kept honking, that at least the other tenants would be annoyed enough to get her to open the door, he rushed to the front. However, when he reached to the front, the curb was empty, his car nowhere to be seen.

No. no.. no. This could be happening. “Fucking hell!” He bellowed at the mostly empty street, his frustration level hitting the roof now.

An old lady peeped out of the second story window, hissing something disdainful at him, but Dean couldn’t care less.“

"You!” Dean tried again. “The wannabe hipster in room 401. OPEN THE DAMN DOOR.”

Aggravated, he ran back upstairs, and kicked the door this time, harder, then ran back and heaved against it. Didn’t matter if it broke down, he’d pay for it later. Hell, he would fix it himself.

One last time, he went back 7 steps, drew a deep breath, braced himself and then flung his body at the door with all the force he could muster.

At the last second, when he was about to make contact with the wood, the door open and instead he ran into a soft body, falling to the ground as a tangled mess of arms of limbs.

“WHAT. THE. FUCK!” Bellowed the husky voice right in his ear, making Dean flinch and back away quickly.

“I should be asking YOU that!” He yelled back. “Where the hell were you when I was ringing the bell? And why did you lock the door from the inside?”

“I-” She huffed, then stopped, before drawing herself up arrogantly. “I was busy working.”

“Are you kidding me?” He realized he had to yell still because the music coming from her room was so loud that screaming at the top of his voice was his only option. “I was shouting my lungs off for you to open the damn door. You would have known that if you hadn’t been blasting Bubblegum bitch that loudly.” Every beat of that song made Dean cringe.

She still looked unapologetic, glaring down at him superiorly. And as always that pissed Dean off more. He could see the pattern forming here.

Instead of continuing the pissing contest, Dean stormed into his room, hurriedly picked up the folder and rushed back out.

But instead of standing, where he’d left her, the girl was standing in front of the door to her room, which was now closed. Had it been open when he’d stepped in? Who did she think he was that she’d rushed to close it so quickly? Some sort of creep?

“I don’t know how and why the landlord puts up with a… a- ”

“Frigid bitch like me?” She shrugged, unperturbed. “It’s cause I pay enough rent for the whole damn apartment.” Dean wanted to do something, anything to wipe that smug smile off of her face.

“Well, the old lady must be into kinky sadism, I don’t see why else she would put anyone through a prison term with YOU!”

With that he stormed out once more, taking three steps at a time to get down.

He drove like a maniac to get to the Campus, that was after convincing the towing guys to give him back his car by handing them extra money and ran as fast as he could to the class. By the time he made it to the entrance, he was panting so hard, he had to bend to catch his breath.

“Gracing us with your presence, are you now, Mr. Winchester?” Zachariah drawled. “So very compassionate of you.” He turned to the class. “We’ve been blessed.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said quickly. “I- I forgot my assignment and had to go back to get it.”

“It was due at 12,” He leered, “Can you read the clock to tell me what time it is?”

Dean looked at the southern wall of the studio. 12:05.

His heart sank.

“Please professor,” he gritted his teeth. “I got stuck in traffic.” Every cell in his body was cursing that girl in black. “It’s just 5 minutes.”

“Just? Just 5?” He said. “You wouldn’t know about the importance of five damn minutes would you now? It takes just five minutes for a damn engine to overheat and burst into flames. ”

He paused, eyeing the class with a malicious expression. Dean saw even Meg gulp from the corner of his eye.

“Hand me the assignment,” Zachariah extended his hand, and Dean quickly passed it. Before he had the time to even breathe a sigh of relief, the man tore the papers into four quarters right in front of Dean’s eyes. The ripping sound echoed even through a full room.

Dean’s eyes widened, and Zachariah grinned some more. He looked so evil that Dean wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

“Just so you understand the importance of 5 minutes, you will redo the assignment 5 times. One for each minute that you were late. No printing this time. You will write down every word and draft every drawing with a drafter and drawing board on A0 sheets. To be handed at Exactly 12, this day next week. You can go now.”

Dean turned and walked back out, stunned.

What the hell had just happened?

Aimlessly, he walked back to the quadrangle and dropped on an empty seat. It had taken him day and night to research, draft and type that stuff. How was he supposed to write it five times in just that time? Well there would be no research, but hand-drafting would take 10 hours per sheet. And to do them all 5 times? He would never get done with it.

Dejected, Dean got up, and headed to his car. He couldn’t keep the sneer of Zachariah out of his mind. Couldn’t help but see the shocked, pitying faces of his classmates. He couldn’t stop the ringing of Marina and the Diamonds out of his ears. He was shocked at the instinct of wanting to strangle that girl the next time he saw her beanie clad head and smug-ass face. But most of all, even though he wanted to with all his heart, a little part of his mind couldn’t stop thinking of the feel of her soft body pressed against his for those couple of confusing seconds. And God, he wanted to stop thinking about that so bad.


	4. Chapter 4

“Son, at this rate you will drive yourself crazy.”

“I don’t have a choice here, Bobby,” Dean sighed.

He was furiously scribbling along a sheet of paper, having just started writing the assignment for the first time after giving up on the sheets completely. The T-Scale was still mounted on the side of the work table in Bobby’s cabin.

“You’ve barely gone home, young man,” Bobby commented. His usually gruff demeanor seemed caring now and Dean didn’t know what to do with it. Gruffness he could deal with. Worry? Not so much.

“Don’t worry about,” Dean assured him. “Unless this is inconvenient for you.”

“It don’t matter to me at all. You might just want to spend some time at the apartment that makes you work your ass off here so you can pay the rent.”

Dean didn’t want to admit that he was avoiding that girl like the plague, but he did it nevertheless. “It’s that other girl in the apartment, Bobby. She drives me nuts.”

“Girl trouble, eh?”

Dean shook his head at Bobby’s raised eyebrows.

“It isn’t like that,” he laughed despite himself. “I have to control myself too much in her presence so I don’t strangle her with my own two hands. She’s impossible.”

“It’s what I used to say about wife when I first met her,” Bobby shrugged. “You watch your steps.”

Dean laughed out loud at even the idea of him getting out one civil word with that girl, but he let the topic go. It was good to laugh after all the weekend stress. It was Monday afternoon and Dean had barely left the auto shop except to get clothes from the apartment and to go to classes that morning. All of those times her room was locked from outside. He’d briefly wondered if she worked nights, but then dropped it, not wanting to waste time by getting mad about her. He had a feeling that Bobby was letting him off easy on the work because of the college crap. And it made him feel both warm and wary inside. He wasn’t used to feeling this way.

But he knew that it was unfair for Bobby’s work to lag.

“Hey, Bobby. You do know that I need breaks with this thing, right? So if there’s anything, you’ll let me know?”

Bobby gave Dean a calculating look, then said. “What I do want is for you to rest up, but if you’re up for it, I just got a call about a broken tap. You up for that?”

“Sure,” Dean jumped up. It would mean wet clothes, but it was the least Dean could do in return.

“Alright,” Dean said, picking up his leather jacket and flinging it over his shoulder. “Where’s it?”

Bobby read out the address, then turned to look at Dean who stood frozen on the spot.

“You alright? Know the place?”

“I live there,” Dean murmured.

* * *

Running up and down the steps was starting to be a regular thing now, and Dean was already mad that the reason was almost always the same. That _girl_.

He banged on the door, the moment he reached the landing. Before his hand could land on the door a third time, it swung wide open.

“Opened too quickly this time?” Dean taunted.

“You? What the hell are _you_ doing here?” She breathed out. “I thought it was the Handyman.”

“I _am_ the Handyman,” he retorted. “Now move over and let me see the mess.”

It was a mess all right. The whole apartment was flooded. There was ankle deep water in the living room, and as far as he could see the barrage of water was coming from her mystery room.

“What in the name of hell…” He trailed off.

“Damn it!” She cursed. “Why did it have to be you?”

“Honey,” Dean thundered. “It _was_ going to be me at _some_ point! That’s my room flooding over there.”

She just huffed, crossing her arms below her chest. Dressed in a baggy Brown Tee-shirt that reached up to her knees and what looked like yoga pants, she was wet to her last cell. She had a huge purple bandanna covering her head today. Even her eyelashes were dripping. Had it been anyone else- absolutely anyone else- Dean would have felt bad for them. But despite how harassed she looked, Dean couldn’t muster any sympathy.

“Now move over,” he said, trudging towards her room.

But she was faster, blocking the door. “No. You can’t go in there.”

“What? Are you crazy?” Dean said, outraged. “You hate me so much that you’re even willing to drown yourself to kill me in the water?”

“It’s not about you, idiot,” she said, visibly distressed. “But I’m not letting you in.”

Dean threw up his hands in frustration. “Why did you call a handyman if you weren’t going to let anyone in?”

“I- Well…” The answer was clearly written across her face.

This was incredulous. “You would have willingly let someone else in, but not me?” Dean gawked. “You’re impossible.”

“Well, I don’t have to live with any other guy,” she said, exasperated. “You, on the other hand, are the roommate.”

The panic was written clearly across her face. She was torn between obviously wanting the tap- which was gushing out a deluge- to be fixed but she also really didn’t want Dean to go in.

The sheer sincerity of her dread made Dean calm down unexpectedly. He couldn’t understand her stubbornness but he could understand the alarm. This was really important to her.

He took a deep breath, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“What?” She looked taken aback at the sudden change in his mood. And once the scowl slipped off her face, it was even easier to tame the absurd irritation he felt because underneath all those frowns, her face was surprisingly guileless.

He offered her a tiny smile. “I can’t keep calling you the Goth lady in room 401 if I’m going to talk you through this.”

“Y/N. It’s Y/N.”

What a beautiful name.

Her face remained comically blank, and if they hadn’t been standing in the middle of what was looking like a cascade with every passing minute, Dean would have laughed out loud.

He bent down and reached into his tool box to pull out a wench.

“Here,” he handed it to her. “Now, Y/N, I want you to go in and tell me exactly where the water is spouting from. Can you do that?”

She nodded quickly, then ducked inside.

Despite the semi open door, Dean could see nothing. The red door of her room faced a semi- blank wall, creating a sort of screen between the actual room and the little alcove it seemed to form. Dean would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to, at least, peek inside, but he didn’t. She was trusting him with this.

“It’s spouting from the swivel,” she yelled, loud enough for him to hear. “Right above the faucet.”

“Alright,” Dean shouted back. “What type of tap is it? Is it like the one in my room? With a round swivel?”

“Yeah.”

Good. then it was easy.

“Okay, Y/N,” he said. “Listen to me very carefully now. Hold that knob with both your hands and pull it up.”

“What? But that will break it.”

“That’s what we are aiming for,” Dean explained patiently. “The lever we are looking for is under that. I’m assuming the water has been spewing for a while now so, the top must be already loose. Just pull it away.”

“Okay.” Came her muffled voice. There was groan and then her triumphant yell. “Done. Now what?”

Even if she hadn’t yelled, the increase in the force of water would have let dean know that the swivel was out.

“Can you see a nut at the base of the lever? Just above the faucet?”

“Yeah!”

“Good,” Dean commanded. “Now place the wench at the base, hook the bolt with it and turn it clockwise.”

“Clockwise?” She called out to confirm.

“Yeah. Just swing it hard. You’ll know it’s enough when the water stops.”

She didn’t say anything to that, but the room was filled with delicate grunts and at long last the pouring water stopped. It had reached Dean’s shin now and his jeans was completely wet.

She emerged from the room, impossibly, even more drenched, but her lips were split in a victorious grin. “We did it!”

Dean found himself returning her smile as he raised his hand. “High five.”

She reached out with her hand and clapped his thoughtlessly, before her face fell and the sullen expression returned.

“Thanks… I guess.” She looked visibly mollified, and again, Dean was tempted to taunt her some, but her fleeting smile had been a thing of wonder and Dean would rather see that than go back to the pissing contest.

“How much for this?” She asked, eyes cast down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean said firmly. “You don’t have to pay anything.”

“Why?” Surprise rippled across her face once more.

Dean smiled. “Because firstly I didn’t put in any labor. I just hollered the instructions and you did the fixing. And secondly, cause we’re going to have to put in enough to fix this mess.”

He looked around at the floating pieces of household items. The only things unaffected were probably the top of the sofa, the top of his bed and the TV which was mounted on a high platform. Everything else was either somewhat submerged or floating.

He let out a sigh and turned to face her guilty expression. “Let’s just drain this all from our bathrooms and we’ll see what else can be done.”

It took a good part of an hour to get all the water off the floor. In its aftermath, Dean found that the 3 sheets he had managed to draft were all destroyed now. But unlike today morning, he found it hard to pin it on the girl… on Y/N. She hadn’t asked for this anymore that he had. God knows what else had been damaged in her room.

He dragged his feet and fell on the sofa, exhausted and wet from hair to toe now.

“Here.”

Dean looked up to see that Y/N was holding a wad of cash uncertainly over his head.

He shook his head. “I can’t take it. I told you why.”

“Doesn’t feel right,” she muttered, stealing looks, and Dean realized that the only time she’d actually looked him the eye was when she’d been angry at him. When she wasn’t, she did her best to maintain no eye contact.

“Look, I’m not taking it,” he said firmly. “You can order pizza for tonight though. We both deserve that.”

“Okay.” She turned around.

“Y/N!” He called and she turned.

He stood up and offered his hand. “I’m Dean Winchester.”

She stared, looking from his face to his outstretched fingers, then grasped it in a surprisingly firm grip.

“Y/N Y/L/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you without any drama.”

She smirked slyly. “You don’t consider washing away half the house as drama?”

“Naw… That’s a calamity. It can be dealt with.”

She offered him another smirk and then walked off to find her phone or something. He could hear odd noises of things moving in her room till the bell rang. Then she stormed out of there to pay the Pizza guy.

It was both weird and easy to sit next to her on the sofa, the pizza box propped open between the two of them as the TV played some mindless F1 game. Dean was lost in his own thoughts, wondering how to un-fuck the situation he had landed himself in. He had 4 days to finish impossible amount of work. No way in hell could he do it. Even divine interventions seemed unlikely at this point.

“I’m sorry…” Her voice was soft even in its depth as she pulled him out of his thoughts. Dean looked to see that her eyes were boring into his, washing him in that odd feeling again, like she could see right through him. He’d never seen such shrewd eyes all his life. It was unsettling.

“It’s okay,” he brushed it off. “You didn’t break the tap on purpose.”

She shook her head. “It’s not why. I’m sorry about Friday. I… the music was playing too loud. I couldn’t hear the bell or the bangs for that matter.”

“Why did you even lock the door from the inside?” He wasn’t angry, he was really trying to understand.

She looked away, staring at the TV screen darkly. “Call it habit. I’ve been living here alone for a while since the last tenant left and let’s just say, you haven’t been the first person to try and break in around here.” She left it that, offering no other explanation or even the inclination to pursue the topic further.

“But I’m sorry about that.”

Dean sighed. No point telling her how much trouble he was in thanks to her. It wasn’t like something could come out of it except a guilt trip on her part.

“I’m sorry about the other day, too,” she hesitated.

Dean understood perfectly what she was hinting at this time.

“It was wrong of me to say anything about your mother.”

“It’s okay.” And he really was okay with it. His face probably gave it away, maybe he had given it away that day itself that his mom was dead.

“Well, I don’t know anything about your mom,” she continued. “But I’m sure she must have been a sexy babe!”

Dean all but choked on his slice of pizza. “Excuse me?”

Y/N shrugged. “You look at your face in the mirror? It takes both parties to be really good to create that.”

There was a second’s pause and then Dean burst out laughing, so hard that he had to drop the half eaten slice and bend over to try and control it.

“You’re crazy!” He managed.

“Not the first I’m hearing that,” she admitted nonchalantly. “But I can’t be the first person to tell you that.”

It was his turn to look down to hide the flaming cheeks now. There was a first.

“No one’s quite put it that way.”

She gave him her penetrating gaze again, then abruptly got up. “Well, I’m off now. You can take all of the living room to dry your stuff tonight, but tomorrow is mine.”

Just like that she was back behind that red door.

Dean clutched at his stomach, reveling in the pleasant after ache of a hearty laugh, not remembering the last time he’d had such a difficult day, but also not recalling the last time he’d laughed so much. That girl was something.


	5. Chapter 5

“Why do you look like someone died?” Cas’ voice was curious, but his expression was borderline pitying when he found Dean on the lone bench in the quadrangle with his head in his hands.

“It’s me. I’m about to get butchered in there,” Dean sighed.

“C'mon, it can’t be that bad.”

Dean looked up to meet Cas’ eyes. “You know exactly how bad it is.”

It was Friday. In an hour and a half Zachariah’s class would begin and Dean would be thrown out again if not failing for the whole semester. He had just one set of drawings done along with the assignment written one and a half times. That asshat of a professor was going to bury him alive. But Dean knew he couldn’t have done any better. With all of his college work drowned, he had other subjects to take care of, too, and yet, he had put in every free second into this stupid redo.

So much for wanting to be in college.

Cas nodded sympathetically because he knew of the flooding tragedy that had befallen Dean, but then he smiled, placing a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Well, my dear friend, I have some good news for you.”

Dean doubted it but he still tried to put on an interested face while internally trying not to drown in doom.

“Zach’s class is cancelled today.”

“You’re kidding!” Could it really be possible? Could such good luck have really befallen him?

“Yep,” Cas smiled. “I was just at the office and the assistant was talking over the phone trying to reschedule Zach’s lecture to Wednesday. Apparently he has the flu.”

“You’re me telling the truth, right?” Dean asked, barely believing his ears.

“Hundred percent,” Cas grinned.

Dean got up, smiling for the first time in the past couple days. “You’re a frigging angel or something.”

“Barely,” he said. “You deserve a break, man. It’s been coming at you from all sides, all the time. How about you join us tonight? There’s a party at the beach and you can tag along with me, Meg and the other guys.”

Beach sounded tempting, but given the chance, he would rather stretch his legs and complete the backlog at a more comfortable pace than the desperate speed he’d been working at.

“I’d love to come, but I think my sanity would thank me for a full night’s sleep now that I have the option.”

“Well you have to go there two weeks later anyways to click pictures for the paper, it would be nice to get to know the area.”

This was going to be his first assignment for the magazine. “What’re the pictures going to be about?”

Cas’ face brightened up. “Oh, there’s going to be the fall fair there. Ferris wheels, games and all that stuff. We cover it every year for the paper.”

Again, Dean was tempted to say yes, but he knew better.

“Thanks Cas, really, but I think I’ll just have a quiet evening. I could use some quiet about now.”

“Alright. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Dean watched Cas walk towards his class, thinking about how people seemed to actually have a life here, while he was stuck trying to grasp the pieces to keep it all together. At least, there was one person whose life seemed to be as boring as Dean’s. He hadn’t seen her since the broken tap debacle. God knows what she did in the day, but, by the time he got back home, her bedroom was always locked.

He’d spent most of those nights in the living room, drafting the sheets on the small table in front of the TV. It was large enough to mount an A0 sheet. More times than necessary, his eyes had flitted towards the red door, even though he knew there was no one behind it. Dean had tried his best to forget the look of absolute panic on Y/N’s face when he’d asked to enter her room and he found himself wondering what could possibly be in there. Years and years of filthy clothes? Maybe that was it, maybe she hadn’t cleaned the place in a while and was embarrassed by it.

Then there was also the question of what she did. About that, Dean had some idea though. Only the night before, when he’d left the work table alone to make himself some coffee at 3 in the morning, he found math books had been laid out on the counter in front of the coffee machine. They were all worn out and from what Dean could guess very advanced math. She’d probably put them out to dry after the water in her room. So, she was a university student too, either she took night classes or it was correspondence.

That gave Dean some perspective about her life. She attended the night classes and took up a job immediately after. Maybe a call centre? But that seemed unlikely given how uninterested she was in any sort of conversation. He’d laughed out loud to himself even picturing her speaking to anyone politely. What an impossible idea. But no matter what, Dean could see she was taking so many efforts to learn. He could respect that. For all he knew, she worked a day job, too. He was just never around to ascertain it.

Dean spent the rest of his day trying to figure out how to finish his work. It seemed impossible in every way, but he was sure going to try. When the last lecture for the day ended, he quickly picked up his bag, flung the leather jacket over his shoulder and got out of his seat, only to be obstructed by Meg.

“Where you heading, pretty boy?”

“Home. You guys have fun at the beach.”

Her brows furrowed. “You’re not coming?”

Before Dean could reply, another guy from behind her spoke up. “Oh, he needs to figure his shit out first. Trying to ace the class and all.”

Nick, Dean remembered. His name was Nick and he was the asshole who always snickered in the back of the class when Zachariah gave him a hard time.

“He’s better at this than all of us put together,” Meg shot him down, but Nick only smirked and sidestepped Dean to walk out of class.

Dean couldn’t care less. He did thank Meg for extending the invitation though. She’d been very supportive of him in the class and otherwise. He knew that he could trust her and Cas without question, and that was something.

Dean didn’t pay any attention to the door on the opposite side out of habit when he got home. Since the rare opportunity had presented itself to him, he just walked into his room, pushed the jacket and the bag in a chair, stripped down to his boxers and threw himself on the bed face first.

Sleep. He needed some sleep to function and before he could even complete that thought, Dean was out like a light.

The room was immersed in complete darkness when he woke up, and Dean sat up bolt, his heart pounding, before he remembered that it was Friday evening and he still had 5 days to finish the stupid assignment from hell. He let himself breathe in and out deeply a few times before pushing himself off the bed. On his way out, he grabbed his black T-shirt and pulled it on. He took a minute to splash water on his face before dragging his feet to the kitchen to boil water for instant noodles. That would have to do. Only when he turned around did he notice a small figure huddled in the corner of the sofa scribbling furiously on a small notepad. Black shirt, black tracks and a black beanie. Y/N looked ready for ninja action.

“What’re you doing here?” Dean asked, all sleep suddenly gone.

“Uhhh I pay the rent?” She replied. “More than you.”

Oh, how he had missed the snark.

“I meant why are you home at this time,” he said patiently, going to sit on the sofa opposite to her. “You work nights, don’t you?”

“I took this weekend off,” she said, without looking up from her little notepad.

“Why?”

She looked up this time, judging whether or not it was worth telling him, then muttered quietly. “I’m visiting my family.”

That seemed fair enough, but another thought had stuck Dean- if she had to request an off, that meant she worked weekends, too. That looked like a lot of hard work.

“Does your family live close by?”

“Close enough,” she muttered, her tone effectively ending the conversation. Dean left her to it, going back to his noodles. He briefly wondered if he should ask her if she wanted some, then decided he would make for two anyway. If worse came to worst, he’d have to put the rest in the fridge and reheat it the next day.

She looked up again when he put a bowl in front of her.

“Chicken noodle,” Dean commented, taking his seat back. “Eat.”

And she dead ass picked up the bowl and emptied it in a minute flat. All Dean could do was stare.

“You want me to finish yours, too?” She grinned, clearly smug about his shocked expression, then shook her head a little. “Thanks for the noodles. I was hungry.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” he murmured, trying to scarf his own noodles.

“Why are _you_ up at 1?” She asked, and Dean realized he’d never actually checked the time. She probably had her sleep cycle inverted anyway.

“I’ve got to finish my assignment,” he said.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “It’s Friday night. You got nothing better to do with it?”

Dean had a retort somewhere about how she wasn’t doing anything too exciting with her life either, but it got stuck in his throat, because the remnant of her grin was still visible in her odd eyes. It was distracting. He just blurted out the truth. All of it, from the delayed assignment that had to be done five times, to the ruined sheets from the water.

Her face was a delicate mask of horror when he was done.

“I don’t blame you for any of it,” Dean clarified quickly. “I just don’t know how the hell I’m going to finish it.”

“How much are you done with?” She asked, and even without looking, Dean could hear how sorry she was.

“One set of the sheets. That’s a total of 5 sheets and the assignment one and a half times.”

“Hey you have one set done, the rest is easy right?”

Dean stared. “How is that easy? It took me the better part of 4 days to get 5 sheets drafted. I just have 5 days for 20 more sheets.”

“Just Glass trace it.” She shrugged, like it was the simplest solution.

“Excuse me, what?”

She looked at him like he’d suddenly grown a third eye, but elaborated all the same. “You have one set of all drawings done, so just trace it.”

“How?”

She grinned cockily again. “Wait here.”

Dean watched as she disappeared into her room and appeared with a light bulb, a holder and an extension cable. She screwed the bulb to the holder, attached it to the extension, which she then connected to the nearest switch.

“Hand me some scotch tape,” she ordered and Dean followed her instruction, curious to see what she was up to.

Y/N carefully taped the bulb to the underside of the glass surfaced table he’d been using as the makeshift drafting board.

“Hand me your completed sheet,” she said and Dean did. Y/N mounted the sheet on the table. She then placed another blank sheet over it, perfectly aligning the edges, then turned on the bulb.

At first, nothing happened, but when she turned the lights off for the whole living room, with only the bulb under the table glowing, he understood the term “Glass tracing” exactly. The bulb was illuminating the lines drawn on the sheet below to reflect it on the sheet above. The section, isometric view and components of an diesel engine were perfectly visible on the new sheet, too. All he had to do was take a pencil and trace it out now.

“I’ll be damned,” he swore softly and somewhere over him in the dark, Y/N’s soft chuckle sounded.

She turned the lights on.

“That should help,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t know about this. What sort of Mechanical student are you?”

Dean was asking himself the same question. For crying out loud, he’d been an assistant in college for 3 years. How did he not know?

“Let me take a look at your report,” she asked, and he handed that to her, too, mutely, still lost in his own thoughts about the trick.

“This seems easy enough,” she commented, reading through his assignment. “Calculating the load on the engine, I see. If you get the formula correct, the derivations are easy enough. This is good math.”

He nodded, mentally realigning the time-table he’d drawn for himself in his head. He had a lot more time on his hand now.

“Tell you what, just get done with all your sheets while you are at it. Who knows, maybe after the weekend, you wouldn’t have to worry about them at all.”

She turned to leave for her room, but Dean stopped her.

“Hey, Y/N!” He called. “Thanks.”

Her Y/E/C eyes were ambivalent. “For what?”

“For… for letting me know about this trick.”

She didn’t dismiss him quickly, like he’d come to expect, instead, she tilted her head to a side and then murmured, “You surprise me, Dean Winchester.”

He hung his head, expecting as much. “Because I’m stupid enough to not know about it?”

“Because you are _sincere_ enough to not know about it,” she said, not as praise, but as a statement. Somehow that just gave more meaning to her words. “Not very many people are that sincere… they all know the cheat codes… except you, apparently.”

“Thanks… I guess?” Dean frowned, unsure what else to say.

“Get some sleep, Romeo. I’m sure you can afford some more of that now.”

Long after Dean had settled in his bed, her words still hung in the air. Something about the way she’d said it made him think that sincerity was a quality she valued. If only she wasn’t so cryptic, he’d know what to make out of her.

The next day he’d fried enough eggs and bacon for two. When he went over to knock on her door, it was locked. Again. Who knew how early she had gotten up to see her family. Dean wondered if they were as weird as she was.

Having the whole house to himself for the weekend made him restless, and it was hard to believe that just a week back he had been hoping for this very thing with all his heart. Nevertheless, he put his time alone to good use, tracing all sheets to the best of his abilities. He was smart, he knew better than to just blindly trace, so he made sure that all the drawings had light guidelines in the background to make it look like they had all been drafted individually. It took a little more time, but it was thorough. It assuaged some of the guilt he felt for tracing.

Come Sunday evening, Dean found himself lounging back on the sofa, phone in his hand. He’d been so busy that he’d never had time to reply to Sam’s hundred missed calls or messages.

His brother picked up on the second ring.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that you disinherited me,” Sam jibed and, even thought Dean could hear his brother’s scoff, there was also a petulant hint of accusal in it.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, running a hand over his face. “Things have been crazy around here.”

“Crazy enough to forget that you have a little brother? You could have at least picked up one call.”

Dean wanted to laugh out loud, not because Sam’s worry was hilarious, but because it was comforting. Over the last year since he’d started at Stanford, Dean worried if Sam would grow distant, love his new, exciting life more than the one Dean could provide him in the dusty town of Lawrence, but Sam had never fallen back on his calls, and even though Dean used to be rueful about the two or three calls in a week, turned out Sam was _much_ better at keeping contact than he was.

“Look, I’m really sorry. I know you must’ve been worried.”

“Worried?” Sam said. “I went so crazy worrying that I almost drove over.”

Oh. That wasn’t good.

“But you didn’t,” Dean tried meekly. He was really feeling bad now.

“Yeah, only because Jess said I should call up the University pretending to be a worried kin. But, I _was_ a worried kin.”

Dean smirked. “Jess, huh? At least you’re talking to her.”

That calmed down Sam some. “Some student body person told me your attendance checked out and I know you wouldn’t pull a bunking stunt in the first week. That’s how I knew you were alive.”

Sam lecturing him like a mother? Oh how the tables had turned, but secretly it made Dean feel all calm inside.

“Tell you what?” Dean tried to placate him. “I think I have the next weekend free. How about I drive over? It’s like 6 hours. We can grab a few beers and I’ll tell all about my misfortunes.”

“Misfortunes, huh?”

You have no clue little, brother.

“Something like that,” Dean smiled, because not all of it had actually been unfortunate.

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam smiled. “I’ll look forward to it. Don’t stand me up.”

Would the kid ever stop whining? “Do I look like the busty blonde who bolted on you yesterday?”

Sam chuckled on the other side of the line. “This one didn’t bolt. Sleep on that.” With that call ended.

Dean looked at the phone for a hot minute. Even Sam was getting action- Sam, the eternal virgin Sam! While, he, the apparent leather- jacketed stud the rest of his class thought he was, was stuck doing homework.

Such was life.

Monday morning was relatively more cheerful. If he stayed up for the rest of the two days as well, he’d manage to get the assignment written, too, the remaining three and a half times. That way he could catch up with rest of it before weekend and then he’d be free to go see his brother. It sounded like a lot of work, but, at least, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Even Bobby noticed when he caught him whistling.

“You’re happy, boy!”

Dean nodded, putting his head back into fixing a bike that none of Bobby’s other boys could figure out what was wrong with.

“Is it the girl?” He asked, and Dean threw back his head, laughing.

“Who? Y/N? God, Bobby no. It’s not like that. She’s a crazy girl.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Dean considered. “Nothing actually, but it’s not like that.” He’d be getting way more action if it had. But he answered Bobby’s question more fully now. “I’m happy cause I’m going to see my brother next weekend… if there’s no work here that is.”

“Go on, boy… there’s nothing that we can’t manage here,” Bobby said gruffly. “Didn’t know you had a brother.”

“I do, a little brother. He’s up at Stanford,” Dean said proudly.

“Two University boys? Your folks must be proud.”

Dean started working back on the bike, fixing the wench under the engine. “They’re both dead.”

“That's… uhhg-”

“It’s okay, Bobby. It’s been a while now, we were kids then.”

Dean drove back thinking if he should have told Bobby the truth. The full truth that is, about his parent’s death. Sure his mom had died when he was a kid, but his dad had been alive up until a few years ago. Dean just wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about him yet.

He walked up distracted. Absentminded enough to even realise that the lift was working. Finally! He was all the way up and almost to his room when a voice that seemed too familiar called out to him.

Y/N was standing by his makeshift worktable, looking harassed.

“What happened to you?” Dean asked, rushing over. “You look-”

“Like someone drowned me 5 times and was brought me back just as many times?”

“Well… yeah.” She looked exhausted, sleep deprived and ready to kill.“ Knowing her, he wouldn’t put that past her.

"The traffic on the road sucked!” She said. “I thought I’d never make it back home in time.”

“It’s okay, you’re back now,” Dean urged. “Sit down, you look ready to fall.”

She shook her head, then pulled out something from the puffy satchel hanging across her frame, and dropped a thick bundle on the table. “Here.”

“What’s that?” Dean asked curiously.

“Your assignment done five times over.” She looked pleased with herself.

His eyes widened as he bent down to pick up the neatly stapled bundle of papers, scourging through leaf after leaf of tall pointed handwriting, neatly compiled into what was now the assignment.

“When? How?” This was better than he could have expected.

She hesitated, the way she did when she was sharing something she wasn’t sure if she should. “Me and my sister did it together. I wrote it, looking at the one you’d already done and she drew all the diagrams. I mean, you’re new, it’s not like that douchebag professor would know your handwriting to notice the difference. Besides, all your assignments from now on would be typed, anyway. This will never come up.”

That was probably the longest speech she’d ever uttered.

“You spent your time away with family writing my imposition? Why?” Dean was astounded. It was all beyond him. The girl worked so hard so she could get a weekend away to meet her family and then she uses that time slogging through his work? Wow, she was crazier than he ever gave her credit for.

Y/N stole looks from under her long lashes. “Well, it was my fault you had to do it anyway and then some of it got drowned… also because of me.” She paused for a second, looking him full in the eyes. “And, also, because my sister isn’t like me, she’s a nice person who didn’t mind carrying my guilt and helping a stranger.”

“Well, looks to me your sister is a lot like you… Good,” Dean mumbled, still shocked. This cleared up his week completely. He would surely get to see Sam now. “Thank you so much, Y/N. This just- you just did me huge favor.”

“Just don’t ever mention it,” she all but warned. “Ever.”

She hurriedly readjusted the satchel and then turned to leave.

“Where’re you going?”

“Work! Now shut up, so I can leave.”

But Dean just couldn’t let her go yet. “You’ll go to work in those?” She was back in the baggy black pants, grey hoodie and beanie.

“Oh, I can always change when I get there,” she smiled unexpectedly, like it was her own private joke.

“Hey, Y/N,” Dean interrupted her again, just to annoy her and her expression didn’t disappoint when she turned around.

“What now, Romeo?”

He simply grinned. “Try not to murder someone tonight.”

She winked. “I’ll try.” Then the door slammed shut, leaving Dean grinning in its wake. Maybe not everything was unfortunate after all.


	6. Chapter 6

The almost 6 hour long drive was more calming than Dean could have ever imagined, but the soft, almost rhythmic purr of the Impala, along with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to heaven’ crooning in the background was heaven. It was both relaxing and nostalgic. Dean couldn’t wait to see his brother and when the car finally stopped along the curb of the address he was looking for, Sam was sitting along the edge, waiting, a huge grin plastered on his face.

“Long time, no see?” He asked, getting up as Dean pulled his brother in a tight hug.

“It’s good to see you, Sam.”

Sam pulled back to give Dean a look. “Is that why you completely forgot about me for two weeks?”

Dean rolled his eyes. 'You can’t be seriously mad about that still!“

"Of course I can be,” Sam shrugged playfully. “I’m the little brother. I get to be whiny all the time. Come, I’ll show you around.”

Dean walked with his brother, taking in the hair that was falling over Sam’s forehead. He was a bit leaner than the last time, dressed in jeans and a Navy T-shirt. Sam showed him around his tiny apartment that he shared with three other boys. Looking at that, Dean felt luckier about his accommodation. In most ways, it was like having his own room.

Sam was super enthusiastic about Dean visiting him after all this time. He wanted Dean to know everything about his life, a few friends. He dragged Dean everywhere, from the University campus to the popular hangouts. Finally, they found themselves a corner booth in a bustling bar, where there was some chance of holding a conversation.

“So what’s up with you?” Sam finally asked. “How’s college treating you?”

“Like crap,” Dean told him, then continued to elaborate on everything that had happened since he’d started there. It felt good to talk, it felt really good to let it out to someone who knew the pressure and the excitement of getting to experience this. Four years back neither of them would have imagined this life for themselves.

“Wow!” Sam breathed out. “You’ve had quite the adventure, haven’t you?”

“Tell me about it.” Dean took another swig of his beer.

“What’s the deal with this girl though?” Sam asked, curiously. “She seems like one tough customer.”

Again. Tell me about it.

But Dean shook his head, gathering the words before speaking them. “I just can’t figure her out, man. You just never know what the hell she’s thinking. She seems like the sort of person who wouldn’t think twice before setting a house on fire if she thought it was the right thing to do.”

Sam laughed. “You sound scared of her.”

“Oh, you would be, too, if you really knew her.”

Sam looked like he was trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

“C'mon, say it,” Dean said. “I know you want to say something, so just say it.”

His brother finally laughed. “I have to admit, when I heard you were bunking with a girl, I thought you’d be having the time of your life. But now, look at you, all confused over a girl. But she did that imposition for you when she didn’t need to. Maybe she’s interested in you.”

It was Dean’s turn to start laughing. “I’m not sure she’s even interested in boys.”

“But you speak fondly of her,” Sam said slyly. Too slyly.

“It’s cause she saved my ass.” Dean wanted to roll his eyes.

“Only because she put it in line of fire in the first face.”

“Well, she didn’t do it purposely!”

Sam’s grin grew more pronounced. “And now you’re defending her. That’s a first. You really sure you’re not falling for your misanthrope of a roommate?”

“It’s not like that, Sam,” Dean said for what seemed like a millionth time now.

Sam put his hands up. “Alright! I was just saying.” But he still had that shit eating grin on his face.

“Bitch!”

“Jerk.”

They finished up their beers and food, then found themselves their usual spots in the Impala. Dean at the front and Sam at the back, leaning against the opposite doors, facing each other as they talked.

Sam wanted to know about everything, from his classes and professors to the job and how he was liking the city. In turn, Dean did tell him everything, about his few friends, including Cas and Meg, and then his friends at the paper. Dean also told him about his job as the photographer and his first assignment at the fair. Sam had the perfect curse words for Zachariah and it was very satisfying to hear. Dean didn’t remember the last time he had talked so much in a way that his throat was sore, his stomach seemed permanently cramped from laughing so hard. And his eyes? His eyes didn’t want to close yet, even if it was way past 2 in the morning. Cooped in a car that was more of a home than any house ever had been, with the only person who’d truly ever been family, Dean felt happy. He felt content even though a little part of his mind kept going back to his apartment.

But as a joke got to him the way only Sam’s words could get him, Dean fell back on to the leather upholstery, laughing like there was no tomorrow and when his heaves tuned into deep breathes that gave way to his snores, he didn’t know.

*tap tap tap*

*tap tap tap*

Dean jerked awake, squinting into the bright light streaming out of the semi-open window to see a shadow rapping at the glass.

He sat up, opening the door to see more clearly. A blonde girl was standing there, with her hands on the hips.

“Why are you kidnapping him, Mister?” She jerked a thumb towards Sam who was still deeply asleep in the backseat, drooling a little.

Dean rubbed his eyes, getting out of the car to face the girl. She was really good-looking. If Dean had to sort her into a club, he’d have gone with the Cheerleader type.

“I- I wasn’t- ” Dean started, but then her face broke into a big smile and she threw her hands around Dean.

“Whoa!” Dean backed up immediately, falling against the frame of the car.

“It’s okay,” she quickly explained, undeterred. “My name’s Jessica. You’re Dean, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, how do you know?”

It hit his sleep- addled brain a little late. She was the Jessica Sam was talking about.

“Well, Sam told me about you,” she said excitedly and Dean put a tick on his cheerleader theory. No one should be that bright in the morning. “In fact, it’s all he talked about at dinner.”

Talking only about things that shouldn’t be talked about on first dates at all? Typical Sam. No wonder his tally of hookups was so horrible. Be that as it might, Dean couldn’t help feeling a warmth somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach for the girl.

“Listen, I’m not some kind of a creep, okay?” She said, looking a little guilty. “I’ve heard so much about you, it feels like I already know you. I just came over to see him in the morning, and he’d mentioned the car and that you drove it, so I just came to look. What’re you guys doing parked out front here?”

Dean cleared his throat. “Uhhgg… We figured the insides was too cramped and we fell asleep while talking.”

“That’s okay,” she said happily, “I’m just glad to meet you. I’ve heard about everything you did for him.” Her eyes flitted towards the boy sleeping in the backseat with what was unmistakably love.

“I did nothing,” Dean said earnestly. She needed to stop looking at him like he was a frigging hero. What the hell had Sam told her anyway?

“He said you’d say that,” she smiled superiorly and Dean couldn’t help but like her as he returned the smile. A secret reassurance that Sam wasn’t alone around here anymore.

“Will you do something for me?” Dean asked, smiling mischievously.

“Anything.”

“Don’t let him forget that he drools.”

Jessica grinned. “You have my word.”

It was harder than he thought it would be to drive away from Sam. A bit sadder than he expected. Dean was beyond happy that Sam had a beautiful girl fall in love with his nerdy ass, but it also made him feel homesick in strange ways, a feeling very similar to when Sam had moved out for the first time. He smiled to himself as he parked the car in its usual spot and then dragged his feet into the lobby. A functional lift did brighten his outlook for the evening.

When he walked into the apartment, he was somehow surprised to find Y/N crouched on the sofa. She had been spending more and more time out of her room, now that they were on somewhat talking terms.

She was scribbling furiously into her little notepad again, her books spread out in front of her. When Dean fell onto the sofa, she nodded once to acknowledge his presence then went back to whatever she was doing. He noticed that she seemed ready to go. Well, it was always difficult to say with her because she never stuck to conventional standards of clothes acceptable for work or sleep or anything for that matter. But she was dressed in a baggy military camouflage pants teamed with a black, knitted, full sleeved turtleneck and the usual black beanie. Dean noticed that the edges of the beanie were damp, and the tip of her nose seemed shiny… so she’d just had a bath. Well, she smelled nice enough for that theory to be true.

“You know, you’re creeping me out again,” she said without looking up from the book. “You need to stop staring.”

“You look nice today,” Dean said simply.

Y/N did a double take like she wasn’t sure if she’d heard right. “What did you say?”

“I said you looked nice. Badass, like Kim Possible.”

There was a pause and then she doubled over laughing. It was like looking into another dimension for Dean, seeing her stoic façade just fall apart to give way to this rare girl who was honestly a wonder.

“What does that make you? Ron?” She asked. “You’re blonde. You fit the part.”

“No, I’m not!” Dean protested. “That’s brown hair.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Romeo,” she said, getting up to gather the books.

Dean checked the watch, it was just past 4:30.

“You’re leaving early today,” he noted.

She gave him her patented smirk. “You’re not the only one with assignments, Winchester.” She stuffed her over full satchel with the notebook and another fat book. “Hope you had a good time with, Sammy.”

“Yeah, I did.” Dean smiled, before it slid off his face. “Wait a second, how do you know about him?”

She shrugged. “So, is he your brother or your boyfriend?”

“Brother… geez!” He all but barfed. “He’s my younger brother.”

“Thought so,” she smiled lightly, as she put on her boots.

“How the hell do you know about him?” For a second Dean thought she’d been snooping around his stuff, but no, Y/N wouldn’t do that. She of all people understood privacy, given the extent to which she went to keep hers. Maybe Sam’s name had slipped past him sometime.

“Really! How do you know about him?” He asked again.

But she merely winked. “Sleep over that.” Again it felt like an inside joke. Everything she ever said felt like an inside joke she had with _herself_. God knew it was infuriating.

“Annoying female!” Dean muttered to himself, as he wandered to the kitchen, hating the prospect of having to cook after driving for so long. However, the counter wasn’t empty. There was half of a large Pizza left that would be more than sufficient for dinner. A note propped on it in a handwriting he recognized too well now said - “Heat me! Eat me!”

There was just no telling with that girl

* * *

“There he is! The superman!”

Dean turned behind to Meg, Cas and their friend, Hannah, sitting in the Quadrangle in their usual spots on Monday morning.

“I’m Superman now?” Dean asked, amused, making his way towards them.

Meg seemed impressed. “What else do I call you?” She gave him a once over. “No human could have managed to finish all that work by himself. How did you do it?”

Dean smiled to himself, remembering the look in his roommates eyes when she’d taught him to glass trace.

_“What sort of Mechanical Engineering student are you?”_

“But seriously, how’d you do it?”

“My friend helped me,” Dean said, weighing the word “friend” in his mind. Were they friends? Well, they were helping each other, feeding each other and sharing a big secret about a flooded apartment from the landlord. The word “friend” should qualify, right?

“Oooohhh friend?” Hannah teased, and Dean was ready to use his tagline of “it’s not like that” when the annoying voice of Nick interrupted him.

“What sort of help?”

Dean knew better than to say the reveal deal in front of him. “Moral support. She bought me Pizza and taught me a couple tricks.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

“What sort of tricks,” Nick pressed, coming up close. He was about Dean’s height.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

Nick gave him a glare. “You’re right. It’s not, but it would be good to see this friend of yours at the fair.”

“Why would she be at the fair?” The idea of Y/N at anything remotely colorful was out of depth.

Nick smiled, only it looked like a sneer. “Because the idea of a stud like you going stag to the fair is going to be very entertaining for the class. A lot of those rides are couple rides.”

He leaned in a little closer. “I’ll be waiting to see your _friend_ , Winchester.”

“The hell’s wrong with him?” Dean asked after Nick had sauntered off.

“He’s butthurt,” Meg concluded. “He was the teacher’s pet last year. Don’t think you’re entrance in the scene is helping his chances.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “He can go screw himself.”

“But hey, at least, tell us about your friend,” Hannah quipped, still interested in that line of conversation.

“She’s my roommate. That’s all.” Dean was just as uninterested in this topic.

“Maybe you should ask her to come along,” Cas suggested.

Dean snorted. “She wouldn’t want to come, trust me. Y'all don’t know her.”

“And we never might, if we don’t see her,” Meg said.

Cas nodded. “Nick was right, you know. A lot of rides are couple rides and you need all the pictures you can for the paper. It’ll be easy to have someone along with you than explain to every booth owner that you’re the paper guy. Just think about it.”

Dean did think about it, all the time at college afterwards and all the time at work. If Bobby noticed the absentmindedness, for once, he didn’t say anything.

Dean left work early that day to make sure that he caught her before she left. Somehow, he was in luck. He did something different today, as opposed to using the key, he rang the bell. After five minutes, the door opened to reveal a very sweaty Y/N. The yoga pants were back today and so was the baggy t-shirt. But as opposed to being all drenched in sweat like her face and her arms, it was dry, so she’d just thrown it on. Which meant she was out just in yoga pants and…and… he quickly threw the image out of his head.

“Were you working out?” Dean asked, stepping in.

“Oh yeah,” she panted. “Why’d you ring the bell?”

“Thought I’d surprise you.”

“Paint me surprised!” She sassed, and Dean was secretly happy about pissing her off even a little bit.

“I wanted to find you before you left for work.”

“Why?” A puzzled look.

“Well…. I wanted to ask you something.” Damn. This was awkward.

“Yeah?”

Dean gulped. “Will you come to the fair with me this weekend?”

“What?” The look on her face was so disbelieving, Dean considered making a run for it. He still wasn’t entirely sure whether or not she murdered people for a living, but, instead, he tried once more.

“I- I work for the paper, as a designated photographer, and they wanted pictures from this year’s fair. A lot of rides are couple’s rides and I figured it would be easier if I just had someone with me so I could get an entry.”

The incredulous look on her face did not change, so Dean pressed his luck, “I really don’t know anyone around here. You’re among the very few friends I have.”

“You want to take me out so your work could be easily done?” Point blank. Typical Y/N.

“No…. it’s not like that,” he quickly explained. “I would love to go out with you. Spend the evening together.”

“I don’t know what sort of a girl you think I am, Winchester,” she said, a dangerous tone to her voice. “But I’m not the sort who pretends to be someone else. I’m not someone’s convenience. You have the wrong estimation of what we have between us.”

*bang*

Just like that he was back at staring the red door. What had just happened?

Dean waited for her to leave the room when she left for work, but even then, she stormed out before he could even get a word out.

Maybe she was in the Mafia after all, Dean thought, or maybe, the CIA. She definitely dressed the part, worked out, and was super secretive. As he laid in bed, he imagined that her room was full of pictures, the walls collages of suspects with threads connecting the links. Maybe that’s why she never let him in. He knew nothing about her except that she had a sister stashed somewhere. One of these days he was going to have to check that stupid satchel of hers for guns and grenades.

His last thought before he fell asleep was how cool it would be if she really had a grenade launcher somewhere in there.

*tap tap tap*

*tap tap tap*

For the second time in the week, Dean woke up to rapping noise, but this time it was his door. It was light outside his window. Must be around 5 in the morning.

Hurriedly, he pulled on a shirt over his boxers and rushed to open it.

Y/N was standing before him, sweaty again and panicked. It reminded him of her expression from the flood day. He was abruptly worried.

“Hey, are you okay?” He held her by her arms gingerly, but she kept trying to say something.

“You know what? You sit here.” Dean guided her to the sofa, then came back with a glass of water. “Are you okay? Did someone hurt you?”

“What? No. I’m okay,” she said, then hesitated. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Because of what I said,” she said timidly. Timid Y/N? That was a first.

Dean looked her deep in the eyes, trying to get her to trust him. “You didn’t want to come to the fair. That’s okay, I shouldn’t have just assumed-”

She shook her head. “No, you didn’t assume. I overreacted. I’ll come with you…if you still want me to.”

“Of course I still want… but I want you to be sure of this first. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

She looked at him with a peculiar expression, then said quietly. “I want to.”

“Why?” He asked despite himself. “Why did you get so angry with me yesterday?”

Dean just couldn’t understand. He couldn’t understand why she closed herself off so completely sometimes. Got so angry, so suddenly. It would have been easier to digest if she had been a bad person, but having known her the way he did… she wasn’t. She was good. Behind all that bravery, she was scared of things, too, maybe more than others. Then there were times like now when she seemed lost… like she wanted to open up, but she couldn’t.

Even now, she was struggling. The words were dying on her lips.

“Sometimes…” she said finally, in a whisper. “I have trouble trusting people. It’s hard for me to believe them when they say they aren’t using me. That they won’t laugh at me later.”

“Why would they laugh at you?” For the life of him he couldn’t understand. She was different, that much was obvious, but that was no reason to treat her differently, to treat her badly.

She shrugged, not quite looking at him.

“Look at me,” Dean said firmly, but his voice was shaky. “Look me in the eyes.”

She did. Scared and vulnerable.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to use you… even for something as stupid as a fair pass. Yes, it would save me five minutes of explaining per booth, but that’s all. I asked you because you’re my friend and it would be nice if I bought us a dinner for a change.”

She laughed, a snot-nosed snort almost, and Dean had never wanted to protect her more. This possible serial-killer of a girl who could have anyone’s balls for breakfast if she wanted to, and in that moment his fingers itched to hold her and pull her in his arms.

What on earth had happened to her? Why was she like this? His heart shuddered even trying to imagine.

“I’m not going to wear a dress or anything, and no make-up, no high heels.” She declared, going back to her usual stern self.

But Dean matched her snark with his this time. “You can wear your sweatpants for all I care.”

“Will you be having friends there?”

“Just Cas and Meg,” Dean said, sensing that it wasn’t an exciting prospect for her. “But they are good people, and they’re excited to meet you.”

“Y-You told them about me?” Nervousness.

Dean knew how to take care of that. “Of course. They had to know the sort of psycho I live with.”

“Okay, whatever, Romeo.” She got up and it was obvious from her slumped posture how tired she was.

“Hey, Y/N, just so you know, it’s my honor to go with you. I couldn’t care less if you turned up in a flowery ball gown or 16th century pirate costume. It’s _you_ that I’m excited about.”

“Okay.”

She turned too quickly towards the door, without even muttering a proper bye. Dean saw the slouched shoulder, the dragging gaze. What Dean couldn’t see as she turned his back on him was the unexpected blush or the smile on her lips that stayed there long after she had fallen asleep in her bed.


	7. Chapter 7

“This is bullshit!” Dean concluded. “There’s no word like that.”

“There is, too.”

“What’s TSAR?”

“A Russian monarch.”

“It’s CZAR!”

She smirked. “It goes both ways.”

Oh yeah, she was right, Dean remembered having read something about that in a comic book, but he wasn’t going to back down now. Not with her anyway and not when it would earn her 45 points.“

"If you want to play Russian words, go play with freaking Russians.”

She snickered. “You have the worst comebacks, I swear, but you’re cute when you’re pissed. Did anyone tell you that?”

He wasn’t cute! What was she playing at?

“Admit it, there’s no way you’re winning this one.”

Why? Why did she have to have the superior air? Yeah, she was winning, but he still wasn’t admitting defeat.

“I’m going to clear the slider and add new letters,” he declared.

“Not before I get home. Don’t you dare pick them to your advantage,” she warned.

“Alright! In the morning then,” Dean agreed. She had only asked him to pick them in front of her. He still had the whole night to arrange them in the bag so he could strategically pick what he required.

“Oh, just so you know, I’m going to shake the bag in the morning,” she grinned before closing the door in her wake.

“Damn it!” Dean swore, giving up on the game. It was a lost cause.

Out of all the things that had magically appeared from Y/N’s room under the pretext of drying, the Scrabble board was one of them along with heaps of books. All sorts of complicated math and economics books.

She had Tuesday nights off, so, after her fretful confessions of Tuesday morning, Dean had come up with the idea of getting her to talk again. Because, knowing her, she would have retracted herself into that shell of hers so far in, that the backside would be the front now.

That had prompted Dean to knock on her door at 6 pm sharp and it had started their days long game of playing scrabble. To say she was good at it was an understatement, but Dean didn’t mind. Between their completely opposite schedules, they barely got time to fill up the words.

He did leave an hour early from work so he could play, even if it meant driving like a maniac to get to Bobby’s early after classes. And Dean suspected that even Y/N left for work a little late. That gave them about two hours to play the disjointed game and Dean would be lying if he said it wasn’t the best part of his day. The folks at the newspaper did find it funny when they found him pouring over the dictionary there, but all in all, he did believe that he stood a chance.

Dean tapped his feet impatiently on Saturday evening. She had promised to be ready when he got off work, but when he’d returned back home, her door was still locked, massive attack blaring from somewhere inside.

“You’re not ready?” Dean yelled, banging at the door.

“Give me 15 minutes,” she hollered back. “I just need to shower.”

He was nervous about the evening, not just about getting the perfect pictures, but about spending time with Y/N outside of their little apartment. Suddenly, she would become more real. After all, Dean knew nothing about her, but he was worried all the same about how she would do in a place so crowded with people.

The door opened just enough to let her pass through, and Dean was surprised to see her in a skirt. It was dark grey in color and pleated. If one looked closer, it had random speckles in a lighter grey shade and it fell up to her shin. She wore her usual black turtleneck underneath a dark brown jacket and the pitch black beanie. What part of her legs the skirt didn’t cover, was covered by dark green striped socks and black converses.

Dean had to grin at her choice of wardrobe. Trust her to not give a flying fuck about her appearance.

“Ready to go?” He asked.

She nodded, looking nervous, slinging her satchel across her body. For a change it almost looked empty.

“Alright, then.” Dean picked up his Camera. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Y/N was quieter than usual as they walked, her eyes darting around them like she was scared that she might actually have to talk to people.

“Have you been out recently?” Dean asked, more to kick start a conversation than anything else.

Y/N looked at him again, in her peculiar way, her eyes piercing into his so that he felt naked.

“Yeah,” she said. “With my sister.”

“You love her a lot, don’t you?” Dean deduced. Her voice always grew tender when she talked about her sister.

“At least I don’t mumble about her in my sleep.”

“That’s how you knew!” Dean guessed. “That’s how you knew about Sam! You heard me mutter in my sleep.”

Her expression quickly became regretful. “I- I didn’t mean to pry. But you were calling out to him the other morning when I got home. Then once more a couple days back. You sounded worried. You kept muttering "save Sammy,” she looked up at him through her long lashes, curiosity burning in her eyes.

Dean knew she wouldn’t ask, because she never volunteered any information about herself, but also that she really wanted to know.

There was nothing to hide.

“When Sam was a baby, about 6 months old, his nursery caught fire. And my mom… well, she was in there with him. She didn’t make it out of there and I had to carry Sam out of the burning house. The kid has been sort of my responsibility since then, you know. Save Sammy… cause he’s all I’ve got now.”

He paused for a second. “I have nightmares about that night. I don’t remember much except carrying Sam out and the heat and the sirens, but the nightmare doesn’t go away.”

He looked towards Y/N to see that all color had drained out of her face. She looked like she had seen a ghost. Then, she made a very loud effort to control her expression and said faintly, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, it was a long time ago,” he said, but all his attention was diverted to Y/N’s reactions. Her face was an open book. It was the most expressive face he had ever seen. For someone who pretended to be so sullen all the time, a minute ago her eyes seemed to be brimming with so much empathy that Dean was taken aback.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old were you?” She asked hesitantly. So despite her self-control, she was invested in his life enough to care how old he was.

“A little over 4 I think.”

Dean was ready this time, waiting to watch her expression fall apart into wordless pain. She did not disappoint.

“That’s awfully young.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, it was a long time ago.”

Her face still looked like a mask of horror, pained and Dean impulsively did something he wouldn’t have dared. He reached out to hold her hand.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Y/N jumped a little at his touch, but Dean held her tighter, marveling at the unique texture of her hand. It was very smooth, the raised contours of her palms were like silk stretched over delicate glass.

“It’s not fair,” she said, her deep voice tender.

Why? Why was his pain affecting her in this way? Over the month that Dean had known her, he’d made a mental board to try to figure her out. Initially, he’d put her under the stoic, stubborn, proud, impossible and violent category. But he had so much more to add to her now. Y/N was intelligent and careful. She was smart and helpful. She cared. But more than that, she was scared. She was terrified of showing her true self- the girl who worried over being misunderstood, who was quick to apologize when she was in the wrong, who felt another’s pain so deeply that it rankled her.

That girl inside her, hidden behind the cold exterior was precious. And the question: ‘What had happened to make her this way?’ bothered him more than it should.

As he tightened his grip on her hand, Dean vowed that he would make sure that, that girl inside her had a great time tonight. Because she deserved it.

Y/N gave a tiny smile at his gesture and threaded her finger within his. Hand in hand, her satchel swinging at her side and his Camera hanging around his neck, they entered the fair.

While passing underneath the huge awning announcing the fair, Dean looked at Y/N, once again taking her nervous expression. Her clear Y/E/C eyes were murky with doubt, and that was unacceptable because Dean had resolved to solve the mystery that was this girl. The fact that she was still holding his hand and not judo flipping him on his ass was a start, right?

“How about we play a little game?” He suggested, inspiration making a sudden appearance.

“Game?” She asked, wary.

Dean gave her a reassuring smile. “Yeah. It’s simple enough.”

“I’m listening.”

“Alright,” he said, trying to be as encouraging as possible. “We’ll ask each other a question alternatively. The only rules are that you _have_ to give an answer and it _has_ to be the _truth_.”

“How would you know if I lied?” She challenged.

“I wouldn’t. But I trust you to not lie, because I won’t either. There will be questions that you don’t want to answer, or I don’t, but that’s the game, you have to answer it in a way that it’s still a truth but doesn’t actually give away the answer. That’s the game.”

She went quiet. Not that Dean could blame her, given her evasiveness.

“C'mon,"he urged, smiling crookedly. "You’re the bluntest person I know, I’m sure you’ll come up with something when you don’t want to answer.”

She smiled back as crookedly, accepting his challenge.

“Fine. But, I start.”

“Okay,” Dean agreed. “Shoot.”

“Why are you here, Dean Winchester?” Her eyes were impenetrable. There was no saying what she was thinking, but, Dean understood her question more because of that. She wasn’t asking about the fair or the college. She meant this life. Why was he living it?

She’d turned the game on him. Her first question itself would give away more about him than anything he could ask her. That is if he answered it fully.

He wanted to say he was here to live the big dream, because he wanted to study, because he wanted to live for himself. But looking at her open face, he blurted the truth, something he’d always known deep down. However, he had buried it inside so well, that he hadn’t even admitted it to himself. Until now. “I- I came here because I had no choice.”

She didn’t say it out loud, but the questioning curiosity in her eyes was so pronounced, she might as well have molded it into words.

“I didn’t have any family left there. Sam left for Stanford a year ago and that town, Lawrence, it just reminded me of everything that I had ever lost. It felt empty, lonely. I felt empty and lonely. I knew if I stayed there any longer, it would pull me down to a place I didn’t want to go. And I wasn’t sure if I would ever come back from there.”

He didn’t look at her at first, confused and a little ashamed at his own admission. However, her impossibly smooth fingers clutched his hand tighter. She understood. Somehow, she really did.

“Alright, your turn,” she said, her voice huskier than usual.

“Is black your favorite color?” Dean asked, starting light. He figured they could both use it.

Y/N seemed surprised, but she answered, anyway. “No. It’s red actually.”

Yeah. The red door. How could he forget?

“I wear black so much cause it is easy to blend in and I can avoid human interaction. Isn’t that the aim of living?”

Dean laughed.

“What does your brother look like?”

Well, he hadn’t expected that question. “He’s tall… taller than I am.”

“Whoa!” She gave him a once over, no doubt trying to picture Sam.

“He’s intelligent and kind, but the kid is lanky and a nerd.”

“Nerdier that you? The one fighting over TSAR and CZAR?” The subtle irony in her voice wasn’t lost on him, after all she had nerded out over that, too.

“Dean!” Cas’ familiar voice called and Dean turned around to see him and Meg walking towards them hand in hand.

Y/N reflexively hid behind him a little, not in a scared way, but in a way that suggested just how non-trusting she was of human interaction.

But Dean knew how to make it better. He let go of her hand and lightly placed a hand behind her back. Y/N stiffened, but other than that gave no sign that she was uncomfortable. Yet, Dean waited for a second or two to make sure she was okay and then slowly urged her forward. “Guys, I’d like you to meet roommate, Y/N.” Then he turned to her. “These are my friends Cas and Meg.”

Cas looked astonished, taking in Y/N’s appearance, but Meg just reached forward and extended her hand. “Death metal or Punk rock?”

“Both! Always both,” Y/N raised an eyebrow and Dean had never noticed how perfectly sculpted it was.

Meg grinned, like it was some sort of initiation test that Y/N had cleared.

“You’re a lucky boy, Dean!” Meg said. “That’s good music in your room.”

Dean wanted to bring up Marina and the Diamonds but, wisely, he bit his tongue.

Y/N gave her a tentative smile and Meg and Cas exchanged a look. Dean very well knew the intent behind it. Even though they had just met her, it was hard not to see how pure and unabridged her smile was. Even if they didn’t understand the rare phenomenon that it was, both of them could still feel its wholesomeness.

“C'mon,” Cas tilted his head towards the centre where most of the sparse crowd was accumulated. “If you want good pictures, you need to hurry before this place starts teeming with people.” He grabbed Meg’s hand and pulled her forward.

Dean hesitated, unsure whether to follow them or not. “Where do I even start with?” He murmured.

Y/N stepped forward, offering her elbow. “I know! There!” She pointed towards the Ferris wheel. "It’s beautiful and the centre of everything, you’ll get great shots there. By the way, you just lost your turn of asking the question.“

He, however, stood transfixed. The multicolored and exuberant lights from the huge, rotating Ferris wheel were casting a surreal reflection in Y/N’s excited eyes. Eyes that had turned into clear glass in the setting hues of the evening’s backdrop. The brilliant lavender and ultramarine, sprinkled with the reflected light from the wheel seemed like ethereal stars in the inverted sky of her eyes. Beautiful didn’t even start to describe it.

"C'mon!” She jumped on the balls of her feet. “It’ll get crowded soon. You need to move your ass.”

Still stunned, and unwilling to look away, Dean hooked his elbow in hers and let her lead him further into the fair, astonished with every step at her growing excitement.

“You’ve never been to a fair before, have you?” He guessed.

She looked at him, visibly trying to curb her animated expression and failing all the same. “No. I’ve never had the time.”

Of course. She worked harder than most people.

“I’ve always wanted to go up on one of those,” she eyes the Wheel with wonder again.

And right then, he would have dragged the damn thing back to the apartment if she wanted. Dean had never been up on those things either, even though he’d taken Sam to fairs all the time when they were kids. Mostly it was shooting targets and candy floss for him, but Sam had known better than to insist on the Ferris wheel when he was old enough.

Y/N didn’t let go of his elbow as they waited in line for the ticket behind another cheesy couple. The girl gave Y/N a once over, not in a mean way, but just surprised at the dressing sense, before quickly averting her gaze when she saw Dean staring.

Y/N pulled out cash and paid for the tickets by the time the couple in front of them had receded and Dean regretted his momentary distraction. She shouldn’t have had to pay. Then something more pressing occurred to him as he saw her checking the tickets.

“You bought two of those?”

She looked confused. “Of course. One for you and one for me.”

Simple.

“You go on, Y/N,” he gulped. “I’m not coming up there with you.”

“Oh, c'mon!” She clapped him on his back. “It’ll be fun. Don’t be such a kill-joy. Look how high up it goes.”

He was looking. That was the problem. Dean gulped again, sweat dewing on his forehead now. Two instincts warring against each other. The one that won was the eagerness to see Y/N happier than he had before.

“C'mon, grumpy pants,” she beckoned to him. “It’s gonna start now.”

Dean looked up, prayed to a deity he knew didn’t exist, then followed Y/N into the small booth. It looked like tiny Gazebo, with four seats. Since not many people were lined up, the guy coordinating it smirked and shut the tiny door after them. Dean was quick to take a seat and buckle himself in. Even though he wanted to see her face light up, he wasn’t ready to die on a stupid ride which was a one way ticket to heaven. For crying out loud it went up too! Besides, he had Sam to think of… He couldn’t subject his brother to an embarrassing obituary that said he had died in a stupid Ferris Wheel.

“Wow. You look white,” Y/N commented, inspecting him like a specimen in a glass jar from a high-school biology lab.

Dean was instantly self-conscious. “Stop looking at me like that! And you accuse me of being a creep.”

She laughed… like the sparkling of a freshwater stream falling high up from the mountains, and it eased some of his fear.

It lasted for a very short while, for soon, the little compartment jerked and the wheel moved, taking him higher and higher with every passing second.

“Son of a bitch!” he swore under his breath, closing his eyes tightly. How many times was the thing supposed to go up and down, anyway?

His held his breath, heart in his mouth, waiting with baited breath for it to go till the top so it could finally go down. He could feel when it reached its apex and Y/N exulted.

“Look!”

Reflexively, he opened his eyes. The entire bay was stretched out in front of him. Little buildings against the now black water. Gorgeous would have been the word if he could articulate it. The view lasted for a second, before the compartment was going down and Dean instantly regretted wishing for it. The way up was better. Going down literally felt like falling. Like he was gonna die.

He counted seconds for it to finish, concentrating on Y/N’s awed expression when the wheel suddenly lurched to an halt, with them almost at the top.

_Well, damn!_

“Shit! This can’t be happening,” he breathed as they stayed mid-air, suspended in what seemed like a different plane.

As he was trying to concentrate on easing the rising panic, he heard her laugh, high-spirited.

“Dean, look!” She said, and he did, because for the first time since he’d known her, she’d called him by his name. Not his full name, not Winchester, not even Romeo… but Dean. And he could swear it had never sounded so good, like it was meant to fall off her lips, in that oddly husky voice.

Before Dean could even contemplate his own shocking emotions, he looked up to see her, leaning over the edge completely, only supporting her body by grabbing the corner column of the compartment.

“Jesus, girl! Are you crazy?” Thoughtlessly he jumped out of his seat, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in. “You could have slipped and fallen down.”

Even the thought punched a pit of his stomach.

But she was still smiling, radiant. “Relax,” she rolled her eyes. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me.” Again, she smiled her secret joke smile, and bent over.

Dean pulled her back again, but this time, he lost his footing and fell back into the chair, Y/N softly falling over him. Her hands landed by the side of his face, chest pressing into his. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to, and Y/N was making no efforts to move either. She wasn’t shying away, or looking awkward. Instead, she was staring intently into his eyes, without blinking. It was disconcerting.

He squirmed a little underneath, and she finally pushed against the back of the seat and moved off of him.

“You have beautiful eyes,” she declared. “There’s gold specks in it. I never noticed.” Y/N stated it like she was discussing the weather. That wasn’t weird at all.

He cleared his throat. Funnily, it was hard to find his voice again, but with some effort, he did anyway. “Just don’t lean in, please.”

“Chill. I have a great balance.”

“All the same, just don’t.”

“Wait a second.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re scared of heights, aren’t you?”

She wasn’t laughing, but something in the set of her mouth told him that she was, at least, a little amused. And he wanted to deny it, he really did, but he also knew that she wasn’t asking him a question. She was just confirming what she already knew. So, he gave in.

“What gave it away?” He hung his shoulders.

“You mean apart from the fact that you look like you’ve seen a ghost and that you’re literally shaking?”

He said nothing, waiting for her to make a quip out of it. She didn’t.

In fact, she was looking at him with that tender expression again, one that hinted at the ocean of empathy she had somewhere hidden in the depth of her heart.

“Why did you get on the wheel?” She asked. “You could have told me earlier.”

Like hell he was going to tell her the real reason behind it, not before he could, at least, make sense of it in his own head.

“Come here,” she beckoned to him, and he almost shook his head. She was standing by the edge after all.

“Trust me?” Y/N asked, and the answer presented itself to him as easily as the next breath.

“Yeah.”

She extended her hand further, “Then, come.”

He took it, his wear worn skin rubbing against her smooth one. Then, he took one step at a time carefully till he was right next to her.

Y/N slipped a hand tentatively around his waist, giving him all the time to step out of it if he wanted to, but Dean didn’t and she tightened her hold, firmly holding the pillar with the other hand. “I’m not going to let you fall, okay?”

It should have been funny because Y/N was much smaller than him, in height and otherwise, but he could see that she meant it.

“Now look,” she pointed towards the horizon.

The line of tiny streetlights bordering the water looked like a necklace of sort, glittering brilliantly. More than that, the criss-cross of more lights from the low slung houses behind it, seemed like a huge net, impossibly confining the dark water from flowing over it. It was so calming, that Dean forgot he was supposed to be scared.

“Stunning, isn’t it?” Y/N whispered, and he was suddenly aware of how close he was standing. Close enough for him to recognize the honey-cinnamon scent coming off her, the smell that he’d come to attach with the comfort of a home in this unknown town because every corner of the apartment smelled like that. He found it apt, because she was strong like cinnamon, excess of it would burn, but also inexplicably sweet like honey.

“Yeah, pretty stunning.” Sure, the view before him was good, too.

Then it occurred to him.

“Wait a sec,” he said, stepping back and fumbling with the camera around the neck.

“Ooohh, it’s perfect,” she said, clapping her hands in a most not Y/N way. But then again, at this point Dean wasn’t sure what exactly was the Y/N way. “Now you get to click steady pics for the paper.”

She stepped out of the way, leaning against the column on one side, so Dean could have a clear frame of the bay. And he did. Dean took complete advantage of the opportunity, clicking as many pictures as he could, but soon he found himself clicking the pictures of the graceful silhouette standing against the side. At first, it was just the dark figure, but soon, he zoomed in further, concentrating on high cheekbone, her face as he looked into the sea, her finger resting at the edge of her lips.

The wheel swayed a little and then began rolling once more. Y/N was quick to reach out to him. “It’s okay. There’s just one more round. Then we’ll be done.”

Dean let her guide him to the seat and buckle him up, not because he couldn’t do it himself, but because no one had ever done it for him. There had been no one. The unfamiliarity of the whole situation made it difficult to do anything but be a spectator in the turn of the moment. She sat beside him, quietly taking in the splendor before them and he allowed himself to forget his fear and just live in the second. Revel both in the beauty ahead and her warm touch.

When the wheel finally stopped and it was their turn to get out, she helped him still, making sure he wasn’t woozy.

“I want to say that you should have stayed down, but it wouldn’t have been worth it _without you_ , _”_ she said as they walked into the now bustling road.

“Y/N.” Dean stopped.

“Yeah?”

“I want to say that I should have stayed down, but it was totally worth it _because of you.”_

She looked down, the lashes creating a shadow across her cheek and pulled the beanie further down, completely covering even the lobes of her ear. Dean didn’t know enough to be sure… but was she… could she actually be blushing?

“If it isn’t Miracle Winchester!”

Dean groaned, turning to the sound of the voice he didn’t want to listen to right now.

“If it isn’t annoying Nick.”

Nick sure had the sort of voice that made Dean forget every other thing except the annoyance towards him, but not today. Today, he couldn’t get the warm afterglow of Y/N’s laughter out of his head. That’s what made him steal a look at her. Nick noticed.

“So _that_ is your girlfriend?” It wasn’t a question. It was a sneer.

Dean would have dissected his tone, would have been angry about what that tone implied- that somehow Y/N was beneath him. Was it the way she dressed, the way she looked? Or was it something else?

But he couldn’t. Because the moment Nick uttered the word 'girlfriend,’ Y/N’s head whipped in Dean’s direction. The unfathomable, unwavering coldness back in her eyes. He wanted to yell 'no… come back!’ to the girl who was overjoyed about riding a Ferris Wheel for the first time. But she was too far buried underneath the sullen mask.

And for the first time Dean couldn’t find the right curse words to yell out at that asshat. But for the life of him, all he could do was curse his luck because that idiot _might_ have ruined what had been turning out to be the best night in a while.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean stared back because it was all he could do. He stared back into Y/N’s unflinching stare, trying to decipher the thoughts running through her head, for once hoping that her mind reading stare worked, that she could pick the truth right through his head.

Then something unexpected happened, she nodded ever so lightly and turned to face Nick, who stepped back. A reflex to her fierceness, but he recovered soon enough, completely looking past her and to Dean.

“Is that the one who helped you with the assignment? Your _special_ friend?” Nick’s eyes roved over Y/N once more, finding what he saw disinteresting and the fury roared again inside Dean.

He stepped ahead, but Y/N put her hand forward, stopping him. He knew better than to overstep her boundaries.

Y/N smiled, slow and cheesy. “Sure, I helped him, mostly because he deserved it. I’m sure your friend over there helps you with all those load calculations you break your head over before every submission.”

The friend in question was a giggly girl who seemed too drunk to even balance herself. She was leaning over Nick for support.

Nick gave the girl one disgruntled look, clearly mad that he was being judged by the standard of a wasted junior.

“Don’t look at her like that,” Y/N continued. “Even drunk, she’d do way better in a brain test than you’d do a month sober.”

Dean had to control an urge to snicker. His protective instinct for her was still a mystery to him, but he should have known better than to try and actually protect her. She looked the sort who put people in their places for a living. What was one Nick Dormer to her?

“Well, I do hope you manage to cultivate some common sense. It would be good for you,” she continued. “Learning to not judge women by their looks should be a good start.”

Dean wanted to call 911 and report a murder, but he settled for a smug grin, not unlike Y/N’s. When she jerked her head, gesturing to move, he deliberately stepped ahead and intertwined his fingers within hers. Then hand in hand, together, they walked away as the girl wrapped around Nick giggled once more.

“How did you know that I hadn’t said anything to him?” Dean asked when they were out of earshot.

“It’s my turn to ask the question,” she pointed out, but answered anyway. “You assured me the other day that you weren’t using me. Not even to brag about a fake girlfriend. I believed you.”

So simple for her say, but Dean knew exactly how hard it must have been for her to realize that… to trust him, to follow his word. It made him feel special.

“Please tell me you don’t let that idiot walk all over you in college?”

He shrugged. “I don’t care enough about him to even notice him. He looks at me like an outcast of sort.”

“Why?” She asked curiously. Of course she wouldn’t find anything wrong with his over-large, worn out leather jacket that screamed 70’s.

“Let’s just say I’m old fashioned.” He spread his arms wide to make a show of the jacket.

Y/N groaned. “Of course it would be all about appearance for him.” She looked at him. “I love your jacket though. Gives the bad boy vibe.”

“Is that why you jumped on me that first day?” He teased.

She had the grace to look embarrassed and it made Dean laugh.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t hold that against you. Does seem kinda creepy now that I think about it.”

He scanned the street looking for somewhere they could head next, and then found a group of his college mates gathered near the Limbo bar, Meg, Cas and Hannah with them. It made him feel guilty about ditching them.

He felt her hand on his shoulder. “You have to go be with them, don’t you?”

Truth be told, he didn’t. He didn’t want to leave Y/N and go be with his friends, but they were expecting him, and he knew that Y/N wouldn’t be comfortable in company. He felt torn.

She laughed. “You look tortured.”

“I promised you I’d make sure you had a good time,” he said firmly.

“And I am,” she reassured. “Come, let’s head over to your friends. You can do the talking and I’ll do the listening… as long as it’s not about the weather.”

Dean couldn’t have been more grateful as she let him guide her to the group.

Everyone there was faring miserably at the Limbo and Hannah was urging Meg to try it. All eyes turned to him when Dean reached them and Y/N squirmed behind him. Cas gave him a huge grin while Meg stepped forward to introduce Y/N to everyone who greeted her and she nodded back, smiling hesitantly. Dean had to grin at her effort of being socially polite. It was awkward. It was adorable.

“C'mon, do the Limbo!” Hannah pushed Meg, and she gave in, laughing as she tried to bend enough to get past the rod. It was placed at an height of 4’ 4".

In her defense, Meg tried her best, but apparently, it was harder than it appeared and just when it looked like she was going to cross it, her head hit the bar and it displaced with a loud clang. Everyone started laughing, so did Meg as she returned rubbing her head.

The next girl in line, a pretty brunette was braver, she danced a couple of steps to the peppy beat and then tried her luck, passing the rod without touching it and everyone cheered. The handler asked her if she was ready the take the money or if he should lower the bar and double the stakes. The girl considered and then asked him to lower it by another 4 inches. Dean clenched his fist as the girl went at it again, but this time, the rod clattered to the ground and everyone let out a collective disappointed “No!”

Everyone except one voice. Dean didn’t have to look to know that it was that asshole Nick.

“C'mon!” He called to the girl, “Go at it again.” Only, it wasn’t encouraging, it was mocking.

“That stuff is hard, okay?” Dean said, unable to stop himself.

“Sure it is,” Nick said. “But I’m sure if your special friend helped you, you can do this, too, Superman.”

Everyone went quiet all of a sudden.

Nick considered that as a victory. “Of course with something like this, she’d never be able to help you. She’s not the type to be able to pull off something like Limbo.”

Dean got the implication of each word completely. He understood perfectly well the type of girls Nick was hinting at.

But before he could say anything, he felt the swoosh of clothes as Y/N walked past him to the handler.

“Lower the bar,” she ordered.

The guy gave her a puzzled look. “You need to get through 4’ first.”

“Raise the stake and drop it.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

He doubled the stake and the bar went to 3’ 8"

But Y/N shook her head. “Drop it further.”

By now everyone was looking at each other, wondering what was up with her. A few glances strayed towards Dean too, and he didn’t have look up to see the question there.

'Who the hell is this girl that Winchester towed along?’

The handler looked like he wanted to argue but one look from Y/N silenced him again. He now stacked an obscene amount of money on the table. Dean watched as Y/N smirked and lifted one plate of the table, then another. She nodded to the guy who gulped and added more money to the stack.

She judged the bar which stood at only 3’ 4" high, shot one deliberate look at Nick, then her eyes found Dean’s and her face transformed into a reassuring smile.

He didn’t know what his face gave away apart from shock, and if he was true to himself, fear. He knew Y/N, he knew that she wouldn’t do anything that would ever put her in a position that was beneath, however, he couldn’t help but be scared of the 'what if…’ What if she couldn’t do it? Dean knew he couldn’t stop himself from punching Nick in the face if he took one more jibe at her.

Y/N was still moving forward, one disk in each hand. She didn’t try to warm up like the first girl, instead, she bent back gracefully and slid from underneath the bar as easily as if it was a choreographed move she’d been practicing for ages. Not till she had placed the discs back on the counter and gathered the lump sum of money in her slender arms, did she turn back, much to the distaste of a horrified the handler.

Dean had forgotten to breathe. But he wasn’t the only one, for there was an almost audible pop as the jaws around him dropped when Y/N has successfully passed from underneath the Limbo bar.

“Is she a freaking Ninja or what?” Meg gasped.

“I- I don’t know,” Dean said honestly.

Y/N skipped to his side, happy. She jiggled the little bag and offered her arm. Dean took it immediately, grinning wide.

“How the hell did you do that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t like to back down from challenges.”

“Well, clearly.”

Everyone around crowded in on her, acknowledging the feat and praising her for it and she seemed to come of a bubble where it was just him and her. Y/N was visibly embarrassed and confused by the attention, like she wasn’t used to appraising eyes. Dean knew it wouldn’t be long before she was uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat loudly, and announced that he had to move on to other rides to click pictures, then dragged Y/N away from the gawking crowd.

In her relief, she neither saw, nor paid attention to Nick, but in passing, Dean saw his face. Apart from complete and utter humiliation, there was also a curiosity, a certain look of interest that didn’t sit well with Dean. It bothered him, but Dean didn’t dwell too long on it.

Once they were far away, Dean stopped. “What was _that?_ ” He asked her.

“What?” She shrugged.

“THAT! How did you do it?” Then he remembered, she was a yoga freak. How many times had he seen her in those yoga pants?

She straightened her beanie. A sign of nervousness. Of course she doesn’t want to talk about things she is good at. “I just practice a lot.”

“Yoga, yeah.”

“You should try it sometimes,” she suggested. “It keeps me sane through all the sleeplessness.”

She would get along well with Sam who didn’t miss a day of his morning run.

The street was buzzing with people now, college students, teenagers and even young families. Dean was wary about the sort of games Y/N was attracted to. Wrestle the hand, High Striker and such. He had to drag her away from those towards the saner, aiming games. But it was fun to see her hit the hammer harder than the muscled boys and hit the mark on High striker. He made sure he captured every moment with his camera.

She wasn’t any good at aiming though. None out of the 10 cans. So maybe she wasn’t CIA after all.

“That’s not how you do it,” Dean corrected her gently.

“Teach me!” She commanded.

He positioned his hands over her shoulders tenderly and pushed them back a little, then extended his right hand along hers and corrected the way she was holding the cork gun. Placing his chin over her shoulder, he guided her other hand to the trigger.

Dean wanted her to make that shot. He wanted to help her aim right, because, if he missed the shot, he knew he’d never hear the end of it, but it was so hard. The honey-cinnamon wafting off her, the pleasurable warmth exuding from her body and the touch of her back against his chest- it overwhelmed him. He was acutely aware of his heart thudding so loudly in his chest, he was sure Y/N could feel it, caged in his arms that she was. In fact, he was beyond certain that she could even hear his gulp, feel his nervousness.

What was the meaning of all of this? Why was he feeling this way? Tingly and all warm.

But he took the shot nevertheless; wrapped a finger around hers over the trigger, closed his eyes and pulled it.

The tumbling of the can echoed even through the bustling noise. But what rang clearer was her delighted laugh, like crystals of a chandelier swaying against each other on a breezy night. Y/N turned in the circle of his arms, throwing her own arms around his body.

The moment froze. It wasn’t only time directing his existence anymore, it was her presence all around him.

“You did it, Dean! We did it!” She cheered.

And while her fingertips found his lower back, he let go of her, the truth hitting him like a ton of ice. Her seconds of exultation felt like an eternity to Dean, but still not long enough.

When she broke apart from him, her face glowing with glee, he had to fight the urge to hold her again and avert his mind from thoughts of how close her lips were to his. It made his stomach drop right through the floor.

“C'mon! We get to pick a toy from there.”

They were all old and seemingly musty toys, but seeing Y/N’s enthusiasm, Dean didn’t say a word. Instead, he watched as she went through the items and picked up a very fluffy pink stuffed rabbit. It did make him realise one thing though, no one had ever done this for her… What sort of background did she have?

As they walked to towards the carousel, he took his time to simply watch her while she inspected the rabbit, trying to control the overwhelming emotions in his heart. Maybe getting to know her wasn’t the smartest idea after all. Before, Dean could ignore her, even dislike her and as annoying as it was, he could live it. But how was he supposed to live with this new feeling coursing through him?

“Tell me something,” Dean said, after they had left the carousel, because Y/N had refused to spend her free time going around a pole. Dean suspected motion-sickness.

“It’s still my turn to ask question, but you can continue, since you won me this rabbit.”

He smiled. He wanted to ask one particular question, but he changed his mind at the last moment and asked something else. “Why do you wear that beanie all the time? It’s 80 degrees.”

“Keeps the hair off of my face and neck. Is there anything more annoying than sweaty hair on your neck?”

“I- I wouldn’t know,” he said. Dean didn’t know what he expected out of the question, but surely not such a simple answer.

“We should head to the diner… I’m assuming you’re buying me a dinner like you promised?” There was something too sly about her glance.

“Yeah, course,” he said, then continued, hurriedly. “Screw the game. You can ask me as many questions later as you want, but I have to know. What do you do for a living?”

She contemplated, and Dean knew he wasn’t going to get a straight answer even before she spoke. “I work in the tertiary sector.”

He groaned. “That could be anything from a bartender to a hit man!”

“Hit woman,” she corrected. “Or, I could be both.”

Fair enough. He had a fair guess that it was something that she was passionate about, because she didn’t seem like someone who would settle too much.

The diner was also buzzing with people. Dean remembered the first time he’d been here- on his first day in the town, with Benny. Maybe his face showed and Y/N inquired. He told her all about Benny. How, growing up, Benny had been his closest friend and confidant.

“After… after what happened to your mom, I’m sure you could’ve used a friend,” she said hesitantly.

Actually, Benny was there more when he needed help with his father.

She guided him to an empty table at the very corner, sliding in opposite to him. “I’m gonna have a big burger with large fries,” she declared. “What about you?”

“Same.”

Instead of one of the waitresses, the owner spotted Y/N, and made her way over.

“Long time, no see?” The older woman grinned.

Y/N grinned back. “You know the hours, Ellen. In fact, it’s getting crazier lately.”

“You work too hard, baby girl,” Ellen grinned. “But it’s good to see you. At least, I’ll have something to tell Jo the next time she calls.”

Y/N laughed. “Tell her I miss her.”

“Sure thing, kiddo. The usual?”

While Y/N sorted their order, Dean was surprised to see her interact with someone she knew.

She also introduced Dean as her friend and Ellen gave her a raised eyebrow.

Once the owner was gone, he asked. “Who’s Jo?”

“Ellen’s daughter.”

“You friends with her?” Would be interesting to see how Y/N was with her friends.

But she surprised Dean by giving him a peculiar smile… She looked guilty but also mischievous. Like a kid caught stealing cookies. “Errrr…. Actually we went around for a while.”

“Oh-” Wow.

“But that was years ago, when I first moved in here 7 years ago. It wasn’t official or anything, just two teenagers fooling around,” she explained.

“What happened?” Dean asked, despite himself.

She laughed, surprising him again. “Nothing. She got accepted into the college she wanted and moved to the east coast. It’s been years since I saw her. I think she’s engaged or something.”

“So, you haven’t dated since?”

“What do I look like? A hermit?” She seemed to find his question silly, but the anxiety rolling within him was anything but. “I haven’t dated in a while though, the last guy I dated turned out to be a dick.”

Dean laughed, relieved.

“You find that funny?”

“Not at all,” he raised his hands. After the initial relief, he was subdued by the reason behind his relief. What was his expecting? So Y/N was interested in men, too, that shouldn’t matter to him. It shouldn’t make him feel so happy inside. So, his voice was somber when he added. “No one should be a dick to you, you deserve better. You deserve best.”

Y/N gave him the piercing look again, but her features were all soft.

The plates clanged on the table, breaking the moment. “Here’s your food, Y/N,” Ellen said. “Eat up!”

Dean picked at his fries, his stomach already too full of butterflies and denial. But he had to distract himself somehow so she needed to keep talking.

“What’re you gonna do with all that money?” He asked.

“Haven’t decided yet.” She didn’t pursue the topic further, but she had lots to talk about the fair, and Dean found himself mesmerized with the way she spoke in that oddly deep and husky voice. She was both expressive and quiet at the same time, strangely melodic. He had to make an effort to pay attention to what she was saying and not get lost in the lull of her unique voice.

So much that he almost forgot to keep up his end of the promise and pay… almost.

She was laughing more freely by the time they walked up the stairs- the lift was out again. Y/N was sure to tell him the peculiarities about each and every tenant. She had been staying here longer than any of them. He had more fun cursing the lady downstairs than he should have.

Once they were inside the apartment, Y/N shut the door behind them and Dean was suddenly hyperaware about the fact that it was just two of them. No one to interrupt their conversation, no one but just him and her. His heart accelerated once more and he wanted to kick himself for landing in this situation. Every minute with her behind that closed door was going to be a torture of its own kind now.

An inspiration struck him.

“I want to show you something,” he said quietly, nervous.

“Yeah?”

Dean moved quickly, before he could change his mind and grabbed her hand. “Come.”

He guided her to his room and pushed the door, letting them both in, but Y/N stood there rigidly. “You sure you want me in there?”

“Of course,” he said as genially as he could, trying not to give away his anxiousness.

Y/N stepped inside cautiously, her eyes roaming all over the place, taking in the way he had stacked his books on the corner, arranged the few things he owned over the shelves, the pale grey walls and the haphazardly made bed. There were scrolls of sheets carelessly strewn along the wall next to his work table, where his laptop rested. Dean placed the camera right next to it.

Her eyes, however, were trained on the two photographs resting against his bedside lamp.

“Is that Sam?” She asked, pointing to the larger one where he and his brother were laughing. “He looks happy.”

“I should hope,” he said. “I sure tried.”

She walked up to pick the photo, examining it carefully, then picked the other one too, where his mom was hugging him from behind, laughing. “I was right… she’s absolutely beautiful.”

Dean said nothing. Suddenly, there was something stuck in his throat.

“Tell you what,” she said, placing the photos back where they belonged, and taking a seat at the edge of his bed. “I think your mom would have been pretty frickin proud of how you turned out. Looking after your brother the way you did, the sacrifices you made, that’s pretty commendable. Not everyone would have done that.”

He could have said anything then, thanked her or even told her about the jumble of thoughts in his head, but instead, he mumbled something about using the bathroom, and rushed out of the room.

Once inside, he splashed the water over his face once, then twice more, trying to clear his mind of her words and even of those memories- her smooth fingers gripping his, her soft body pressed against his, and even now, in the dimly lit bathroom, his body reacted to that memory, his hands itched to pull her back to him, his skin thirsted to feel hers against it.

As a last resort, he stripped and stepped underneath the shower, trying to fruitlessly drown himself in something other than her. Once the hot water had ran out, he dried himself and wrapped the towel around his waist.

It had been a while since he’d left Y/N in his room. He was fully expecting her to be back behind her red door by the time he entered it. But the scene that met his eyes, took his breath away. Y/N was lying curled on her side in the middle of his bed, deep asleep.

The soft smile on her lips made Dean’s heart melt and he couldn’t help but return it.

As silently as he could, he put on his T-shirt and boxers, then slowly removed Y/N’s shoes, stacking them at the foot of the bed. He softly urged her to let him remove her satchel that was still slung across her torso and her jacket off of her, placing them next to her shoes. Sleepily, she obliged, further letting him adjust her on the bed. He placed a pillow under her head.

Y/N groaned, then in an effort to get more comfortable, pulled off her beanie. A flurry of wild, untamed Y/H/C hair fell out from underneath it, taking Dean by surprise. He hadn’t given much thought to what color her hair was, in fact, he’d never tried to decipher her appearance at all. She wasn’t the girl who would immediately catch your attention the moment you walked into the room, no. But once you saw her, she became more and more beautiful with every passing second, till there came a point where you’d question yourself how you didn’t find her the most exquisite from the first second itself.

Gently, he swept the locks off of her face. He was so close to her now, all he had to do was to bend down a little and kiss her forehead. However, he backed right off. Just when he was about to get off the floor to head to the sofa outside, Y/N’s hand found his, and half asleep she mumbled, “Don’t.”

The emotion he felt in that moment was without a precedent. Right then, Dean knew there was no fighting this feeling. He could try, he could wage a war with himself, but each time he would lose, and lose happily.

A resigned sigh left his lips as he pried her fingers off his wrist. He’d have spent the night on the sofa, but he didn’t want to disrespect her wishes.

He switched the lights off, laid his blanket over her and spread the extra sheet on the carpet next to the bed. Then laid down on it, using her bumpy satchel as the pillow. In the moonlight trickling from the window, she looked like a goddess, a forbidden nymph he wasn’t supposed to see. It was impossible to see her as the annoying girl from a month ago. With every moment he spent with her, she just became more unbelievable.

As he watched her sleeping form, Dean was absolutely certain of two things. One, he had to find out what had happened to her. Not secretly, but rather, he’d wait for as long as it took for her to trust him enough to tell him herself and willingly.

And second, that he wasn’t just in danger of falling for her anymore. He knew it with absolute certainty, felt it in his gut, saw it even behind closed lids that he already had and now, there was no going back from it.


	9. Chapter 9

It tickled him pleasantly. That’s what woke Dean up, and the moment he opened his eyes, a flurry of hair fell into his eyes. He sat up quickly, his head spinning a little because of the suddenness.

At first, he felt disoriented, barely recognizing where he was. This wasn’t his room in Lawrence. Then it came back to him- too quickly, but also not quickly enough. All of the past month and then every minute of last night, the closeness, her smile, her scent… all of it. His stomach dropped and he whipped his head towards her.

Y/N was lying on her stomach, her head turned towards him and her hair splayed around her wildly as if she was swathed in it. The blanket was drawn up till her waist and her turtleneck was hitched up by just a couple of inches.

He forgot how to breathe.

Dean knew he was screwed, mostly because he couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop looking at the little pout she probably didn’t even know her lips made. Couldn’t stop staring at the little frown lines. God knew what dream was making her worry even in her sleep, but he wanted more than anything to kiss those lines on her forehead. But he also wanted to kick himself or maybe laugh at the tragedy of the whole situation. What in the name of hell had made him fall for the one girl who did not want him back? Why had he been so stupid?

But truth be told, even in his heart he knew that he’d never really had any control over it. Looking back, every little thing that had happened between them had just pushed him towards her.

Just as he was pondering over how painful living with this feeling was going to be, with her right next to him under the same roof, the doorbell rang, making him jump.

“What the hell?” he muttered, confused, getting up hurriedly so as to not wake Y/N up.

As he made his way towards the door, the bell rang again.

“Coming!” He called, already pissed at whoever it was.

The bell rang once more just when his fingers found the door knob.

“It’s a fucking Sunda-… Sam?”

Sam stood grinning widely at the door, hands deep in his jeans pocket and a bag slung over his shoulders. “Good morning, Sunshine,” he smirked.

“What’re you doing here?” Dean asked, shocked.

“It’s great to see you, too,” Sam said, walking past him and into the living room. Dean watched as his brother’s eyes roamed around the apartment, taking in every detail and then finally landing on the red door.

“That’s the serial killer chick’s room, right?” Sam pointed out.

Dean had the weirdest urge to defend Y/N. “She’s not a serial killer.”

“It’s not what you told me the last time.”

Dean ignored his question, shut the door and walked up to his brother.

“But what’re you doing here?”

Sam had another hyper excited grin for him. “So, I thought since you came to see me last time, I could surprise you this time. It was Jess’ idea.” His face fell slightly when Dean’s eyes still only reflected shock. “I thought it’d make you happy.”

Dean was quick to reassure. “Of course I’m happy, Sammy. I just didn’t expect you is all.”

That was enough to satisfy Sam. He turned to face the other door. “Is that your room?”

Before Sam could ask to check it out, Dean quickly pushed him to the sofa on which he plopped down unassumingly.

“Dean?” Y/N’s voice called out to him from inside. “Is everything okay?”

Sam’s head whipped around at what would be closed to the speed of light and Dean closed his eyes. He didn’t need to see his brother’s face to know what Sam’s reaction was going to be when Y/N walked out of his room. He’d have that classic Sam Winchester shit eating grin.

She was still groggy, rubbing her eyes, her full lips popping into a small ‘O’ as she yawned. The beanie was back on her head, even though lopsided. All that vanished the moment she saw Sam. Her stance morphed into one that was defensive- she drew herself straight, chin jutting out and her eyes became as distrusting as ever.

Sam paled.

“Y/N-” Dean reached out, ready to jump in between if she decided to launch a physical attack of any sort, but then something changed, her eyes became round and suddenly she dropped the posture.

“You’re Sam,” she said blankly.

Sam got up slowly, carefully. His hands itched at his side, like he was controlling the urge to raise them over his head. Dean had to bite back a chuckle.

Y/N smiled, a small but real smile. “I saw your picture by Dean’s bed.”

Sam gave Dean a _knowing_ side eye and he wanted to groan. What made it worse was that, despite Sam’s assumptions about what Y/N was doing anywhere near Dean’s bed, it wasn’t that way at all. And God, did Dean wanted it to be _that_ way. He wanted all of Sam’s assumptions to be true… so much that he didn’t know whether to cry or laugh about it.

“Uhhh… you guys want coffee or something?” She asked, awkwardly, completely ignorant to what had passed silently between the brothers.

“Sure, that would be great,” Sam said.

Once she had moved to the kitchen and both of them were seated, Sam turned to Dean with a supremely smug expression. “So!”

“So?” Dean had to control the urge to roll his eyes.

 _“It’s not like that_ , huh?” Sam said, quoting him from the other night.

“Shhhh…” Dean whispered, throwing a look towards Y/N, making sure that she was out of earshot. “It really _isn’t_ like that.”

“She just walked out of your bedroom, dude,” Sam contradicted, also whispering.

Dean drew a deep breath to calm himself some. “We went out to the fair last night.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yeah!” Dean realized that everything he said was just gonna make it worse, but he tried anyway. “I had to click pictures for the paper and I just asked her to tag along, that’s all. She was so tired after an evening of me dragging her around, that she passed out on my bed. I slept on the floor.”

Sam gave him a penetrating look, one that Dean was too used to. That was the look he’d get every time he had skipped his dinner and worked overtime, when he’d stayed up late when Sam was studying for SATs. Dean would make up some crap reason, and Sam would call him out on his bullshit. Every time.

It was Sam seeing right through him.

“Here!” Y/N placed the two cups on the table, effectively breaking the hushed conversation.

“I don’t know what you guys like,” she shrugged apologetically, “So I just made it my way.”

“That’s alright,” Dean was quick to reassure her. “You didn’t have to do it.”

“It’s okay.”

Not knowing what else to say, he sipped from his mug. The coffee was surprisingly good.

He looked up to tell her that but the words died on his lips, for Y/N was drinking deeply out of her own mug, eyes closed and a soft smile on her lips. So lost was she, that she was barely aware that he was watching her. Sometimes, a drop would remain on the rim of the mug and her bottom lip would drag along the edge, tongue peeking out quickly to catch it before it rolled down the side.

Dean was mesmerized.

Sam cleared his throat loudly, and Dean fumbled a little with his mug.

“Uhh… the coffee is amazing, Y/N,” he said, trying to somehow hide the warmth he was feeling in his cheeks now.

“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” Sam agreed. “I must say, this is the first time I’ve seen Dean drink something other than black coffee, let alone _like_ it.”

Dean stamped on his brother’s foot behind the coffee table and Sam had to pass his wince as a cough. 

Having Sam anywhere close to Y/N wasn’t going to fare well for him. Dean got up quickly. “How about I show you around the Campus? I know it’s an off day, but that’s even better, right? Less crowd.”

Before Sam could object, Dean rushed back to his room, closing the door behind him.

What an utter mess! The two people that consumed most of his thoughts were now sitting outside while his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest. Sam was his responsibility, a part of his identity. His life had revolved around that nerd kid for as long as he could remember… but his world was realigning now. Wasn’t changing its orbit, no. It was tilting it’s axis, so that Y/N was always there, wherever his thoughts might turn.

He dressed hurriedly, throwing on the first thing that he could find in his closet and then rushed out to the living room.

There, Y/N was laughing at something Sam said. Not smiling, not smirking. She was actually laughing. Sam was in the middle of an animated story with his face stuck on an expression that seemed honestly appalled.

“… What did you expect me to do? Of course I told him to go screw himself,” Sam concluded, as if what he did was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Damn right,” Y/N agreed. “He should have treated you better than that.”

“Honestly, anyone who’d call me an orphan is an ignorant douche bag. I never was one, because I always had Dean. Always.”

Y/N nodded vehemently. The conversation had gone from funny to intense in a minute flat.

Dean coughed loudly and the dialogue came to a halt, both of them turning to the sound of his footsteps.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah!” Sam jumped right up, then turned to her. “It was great meeting you, Y/N,” he said earnestly.

“I can say the same,” she smiled. “Don’t forget about Thanksgiving. We have a date.”

Date? What?

“Of course. I’ll bring Jess around the next time, she’d love to meet you.”

They shook hands and then Sam followed Dean out of the apartment.

All the time that it took to get to the University, Dean couldn’t help but wonder how the hell had Sam managed to break Y/N in 10 minutes flat? In the time that it took Dean to change out of his clothes they had gone from Jess to Dean to an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner. It had taken Dean more than a month to get Y/N to be civil to him.

He felt both curious and annoyed by it. What had Sam done? Maybe he just gave her his big puppy dog eyes and Y/N melted like putty, because no one in Dean’s living memory had managed to beat the puppy dog eyes of doom. Secret agent or not, Y/N was only human. So she lost.

At the University, Dean tried to be as extensive as Sam had been about Stanford, but in reality, he didn’t know much about the place. He still took his brother around to the Mech Lab, Workshops, Paper’s office and the Quadrangle. Sam seemed lost in the beautiful architecture. According to him, colleges on the west coast were far more beautiful than those on the east coast. The east just seemed far more clinical, while the west had a sort of character, something personal about how the buildings stretched out in endless sandstone.

Dean thought Sam was biased, but all in all, it was great to show Sam around, mostly cause the kid had questions to ask about everything, from how the labs worked to all his lectures. What really got to Dean was the way Sam walked with his chest puffed out, not unlike a proud mom. It was only towards the end that Dean realized that Sam’s obvious superior, almost arrogant strut was _because_ of Dean. Sam was proud of _him_. It made Dean go all quiet for a moment.

He was sure to take Sam around to see Cas, who was delighted to see him, and then to the Autobody shop. Bobby was pretty impressed to see the Pre-law from Stanford and it was Dean’s turn to be proud, because, despite what he had achieved, Sam was nothing if not humble. He had a rare sense of empathy that could touch the coldest of hearts. Maybe that’s what got to Y/N.

When it was past afternoon, Sam slung his bag back on his shoulders, his face resigned. It was time to go.

“Are we never going to talk about it?” Sam asked.

“Talk about what?” Dean knew what.

Sam sighed. “Y/N, Dean. Are we ignoring the fact that you’re hopelessly in love with her?”

His stomach dropped. “Uhhgg… What?”

Sam gave him a very pronounced disbelieving look that seemed to ask, 'Seriously?’

“It’s not like that, Sam.” It slipped out before he could even think it through. Dean had said it so many times, that it almost sounded true now. Almost.

“If that’s how you’re going to do it, then let’s drive right back to your place,” Sam said, “Let’s pick your camera and develop that negative roll. I’m willing to bet my ass that more than half the pictures are of that girl.”

“Am I wrong?” He asked again, when Dean didn’t say anything.

Then his expression softened. “I’m not going to drag it out of you, Dean. You can tell me to butt out cause it’s none of my business, but don’t you think you’ve earned the right to be happy?”

Dean didn’t reply to that either, instead, he asked Sam the question he’d been dying to know the answer to. “How did you get her open up to you so soon? I mean, I know you do your cute guy thing, but she’s so removed from everyone all the time. How did you get her to laugh like that?”

Sam scoffed, but it wasn’t mean in any way, more like he thought Dean’s question was cute. Like he was merely indulging Dean when he answered the question.

“To get her to open up,” Sam said slowly, deliberately, “All I had to do was say your name, Dean. I did nothing, you did. Even when you weren’t in the same room.”

Whoa!

Maybe his face showed the shock, maybe it didn’t, but Sam laughed gently. “She’s pretty awesome actually. She has a degree in political science and economics.”

“But really,” Sam continued, when Dean said nothing. “Her face just lit up when I mentioned your name. She loves you, dumbass! I don’t know how you can’t see it.”

Again, Dean was too stunned to reply. It wasn’t possible. Sam was just seeing what he _wanted_ to see. There was no truth there whatsoever.

Sam smiled, a small, knowing smile, as if he could read exactly what was going through Dean’s head. “Think what you want, but you’ll see it soon enough for yourself.”

“Since when did you become such an expert on love?”

Sam shrugged. “Well, I can’t help but not see that she cares for you. I suffer from the same affliction.”

A deliberate wink.

Dean laughed. “College is turning you into one of those bogus fair philosophers, Sam. C'mere.”

Sam went in willingly enough, engulfing Dean in a bear hug. It seemed like he had been a clingy kid just yesterday. When did he grow up enough to preach life lessons?

When his bus rolled in front of the bus stop, Sam climbed in with one last smile. “Just think about what I said okay? You deserve this. _All_ of it.”

Dean sat at the bus long after Sam had left, staring at the winding road ahead of him, his head buzzing with all sorts of thoughts. Ones that he wanted to have, others not so much. But the thoughts that tormented him the most were the ones that he barely dared to believe. What if Sam was right? It wasn’t like him to give false hope. What if there was even the slightest possibly that Y/N felt the same towards him? Even if just a little bit?

The idea scared him to bits, because liking her was one thing. At worst, it would be painful if she never returned the feelings. He’d yearn for her and living under the same roof, burning in the agony of unrequited love would be a torture of its own. But the alternative where she actually returned his feelings and then he disappointed her like every other godforsaken person in his life, what would be left then? How the hell was he supposed to live with that?

Then there was also her past. Dean had guessed enough to know that it was something fucked up. She didn’t seem too willing to elaborate on the other Ex, but something told Dean that it went way back, because if there was one thing he recognized, it was family issues. She’d probably had a hard and messy childhood. Y/N was barely starting to come out of her shell, open up to him… if he did something wrong now, he would end up hurting her in ways that might not even be repairable. God forbid if she never trusted anyone else after that.

Dean put his head in his hands, finally taking his eyes off the setting sun. This was not how he had imagined his life to be when he’d moved into the town. He’d rather do Zach’s assignment another 10 times than deal with this overwhelming feeling building in his chest. But try as he might, he couldn’t forget the feel of her body pressed against his, the way she had reached out to him and asked him to not go. He couldn’t suppress the desperate urge to press his lips to her. Dean wanted to know how she tasted, he wondered if she would lick his lips just like she licked the mug of coffee to catch that stray drop.

It raised goosebumps on his skin just thinking about it.

When the sun had completely disappeared behind the horizon, he got up from the bench, finally making his way back to his car. And despite his own internal conflict, Dean couldn’t help hoping against hope that for this once, Sam was right.


	10. Chapter 10

“C'mon cheer up! Everyone loved your pictures,” Cas patted him on his shoulders.

“Yeah.”

“Dean’s the new star now,” Meg added, coming to sit beside him. “You’re breezing through the internals, the assignments that Zach set up and now even the guys at the paper think you’re some sort of messiah sent to help them with the pictures.”

He smiled at his dark haired friend. Meg and Cas were being too kind too him.

“I can’t use all the pictures though, I’ll have to ask Y/N first.”

Meg smirked. “How’s the Ninja girl doing anyway?”

“Honestly,” Dean said, the smile on his face slipping off, “I haven’t seen much of her.”

It had been two weeks since Sam’s visit and all he got was a few fleeting glimpses of her as they managed their own schedules. Dean didn’t know if he was better off or more desperate that he didn’t get to see her. Both of them had been working weekends non-stop. The boys at Bobby’s had all somehow disappeared out of town at the same time and Dean had been running from pillar to post to get all the work done. It seemed that Y/N was having a similar situation, except she was spending longer hours at work, sometimes even the day shift and then the rest of the time in the library finishing up her assignments. It’s what her post-its on the kitchen counter said.

In the meantime, Dean had developed the negatives. He was glad Sam wasn’t around because he had been right after all, half of those pictures were of Y/N. Smiling, pouting, staring into the distance with the fair lights reflected in her eyes a thousand times over. The angles that she had suggested from atop the damned Ferris wheel were fantastic too, and the team loved those, but what they loved more was her silhouetted figure in the periphery. She set the frame. Without her the picture seemed wrong. Incomplete. Not that anyone except Cas and Meg knew it was Y/N, but it felt wrong to add that one without her permission.

“You couldn’t find a minute to ask her about the picture in two weeks?” Meg asked, disbelief coloring her tone.

Oh, he could have found time, but the truth was, Dean had been avoiding her. Mostly because facing her would mean facing his feelings, but also because he didn’t know if he could control himself from pulling her flush against him, and maybe… maybe kissing her.

That was how he’d make it to the front page of the newspaper. Local college boy murdered. No evidence has been found; the roommate was last seen exiting the scene of the incidence covered in a sticky red substance.

Dean shook his head, dismissing the thoughts.

“Anyway,” Cas cut in, “You have till Monday to figure out the fair pictures. We also need a couple shots of the beach. It’s for another article about local hangout places, but now that they’ve cleared up the fair stuff, you should try out clicking in the daylight.”

Dean nodded, glad to have something else to concentrate on that wasn’t college work or fixing leaks and engines.

“I’ll see you guys then,’ Dean said quickly, getting up before either of them could get back to Y/N.

The beach was mostly empty. Given that it was Friday afternoon, the emptiness surprised Dean. Shouldn’t it be full of people making out?

He made his way towards the shore, removed his shoes and socks and let the sand bury his feet. It felt good. The warmth that was almost uncomfortable, but not really, somehow made him feel more alive. Placing his bag right over the shoes, he trudged further, deliberately feeling the grains against his skin, the pulse of the sand that molded itself around him. Sometimes he wished he could be like that and mould himself around a situation instead of be buried in it.

"There you are!”

Dean almost jumped out of his skin, mostly because he’d been missing her voice right about then and thinking about how appealing the depth was.

“I scared you, didn’t I?” She came from behind, her hand landing on his shoulder. Dean jumped again, but this time for completely different reasons.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding me, Winchester,” she said lightly.

She didn’t know better, because he _had_ been avoiding her. 

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly.

_I’m sorry for not leaving replies to your notes. I’m sorry for taking shifts when I knew you would be home. I’m sorry for being hopelessly in love with you._

“It’s okay, Romeo,” she said, reaching out. Dean hesitated, then slid his fingers along hers, catching hold of them.

“How did you know I was here?”

Y/N shrugged. “I saw you from the street when I was heading home from the library, and beach in mid afternoon is totally something a sane person would do.” Ever so sarcastic. “So I followed you out of concern.”

“That’s very sweet,” he said, narrowing his eyes in mock suspicion. “Who are you and what did you do with my roommate?”

Her laughed sparkled more than the clear blue water stretching for miles ahead of them.

Hand in hand she led him to the water till it crashed against the bare skin of his feet, pushing the sand away.

“I like coming here a lot,” she said. “I remind myself to be more like water.”

“How?”

“Well, it crashes ahead when it wants to, goes back when it wants to. Nothing here can affect the sea. It affects everything else. The trees, the wind and even the rocks. I love the raw power it holds.”

Dean scoffed.

“Something funny?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s just that before you came, I was thinking to myself how I want to be more like the sand.”

He couldn’t miss the irony, could he now? The way the receding water drew the sand towards it was all but hypnotic. The pull there was undeniable. But the same wave hurled the sand so far away when it gushed forward. The metaphor was so tragic, how the water didn’t care about the sand at all, but the sand couldn’t help but bend to its will.

“That’s perfect then, isn’t it?” She said, all of a sudden.

“How is that perfect?” Dean failed to understand.

“You see, nothing can hold the sea like the sand does. The rocks break, the soil dissolves, but the sand? It settles. The sea can be turbulent at its best, create a fucking ruckus around and within itself, but the sand always has its back, maintains its supportive nature. Isn’t that what you do? Deal with me?”

Dean was stumped. He didn’t know what to say.

“Anyway, why are you roasting yourself in the sun?”

That got him talking. “They needed pictures of the beach. Someone is doing a column on the hangout places and I came to check if this place would be any good for the pictures.”

“You’ll get nothing here,” she squinted at the deserted stretch of land. “Not at this hour anyway.”

“You’re right,” Dean agreed. “I need a vantage point. This flat stretch is not of any use.”

“We should get us some shade, unless you want to fry us both.”

Walking back out of the water felt good, the sand stuck to his feet now thanks to the water. It made him smile.

“You don’t seem in a hurry today,” Dean commented as they sat down under one of the umbrellas at the edge.

She pouted, considering her words. “The person I was filling in for is back, so I can afford to go in late today.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been filling in for this person for what? Two weeks now? I think you definitely deserve a break after all that.”

“No, I’d rather work as much as I can, you know.”

“Why?” Dean couldn’t help but ask. “You don’t really need all this money.”

She looked at him quickly, too quickly. “Why would you say that?”

Dean chose his words very carefully. “Well, for starters, you had no clue what you wanted to do with the money that you won. From having lived meal to meal at one point, I know that’s not how someone scrunched for money would think.”

He didn’t know if he was overstepping a line, but he couldn’t see her wearing herself out like this either.

“There’s one other thing I don’t understand. Why do you let the landowner put someone in the room with you if you pay the rent for the whole damn apartment.”

She shook her head. “Technically, I just pay for my room. The other half is interest.”

“Interest? Interest for what?”

She took a deep breath and averted her eyes to the ocean. “I’m buying the whole apartment complex from her.”

“What?” His voice was louder than he intended, she didn’t react to that.

“I’ve been paying off for the whole place for about 7 years now. The price is all paid, it’s just the interest that’s left. 6 more months and I’ll own the place.”

He was still stumped, but she looked at him with a smile.

“Tell me Dean, have you ever been truly scared of something?” She asked, but stopped him before he could open his mouth. “Not of something obvious.. Like not losing Sam or whatever. Of something that might seem insignificant on the obvious level, but deep down, it scares you beyond anything?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I am,” she admitted. “I’m scared of wasting my life. I feel like I just have this one life to learn as much as I can, you know? I want to study as much as I can, Math, Economics, Politics, Literature, Philosophy. All of it. I just don’t want to stop learning… you know?

She was gesturing with her hands now, trying to convey something that meant so much to her. The desperation in her words either meant that she’d never said this out loud to anyone and now that she was, she wanted to get it out as soon as possible. Or, that she wanted to make it convincing, because she thought that he would find her fear silly somehow. First world and crazy.

But if anything, Dean just fell more in love with her.

"It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” She asked, apologetic and a little withdrawn. He was quick to reach out for her hand.

“Actually, no. It sounds exactly like you and in the best way possible.”

She stole looks, shying away. Was she actually blushing?

Sam’s words came back to haunt him: She loves you, you idiot!

“Really, though, imagine owning the place. Then I could rent it out and wouldn’t have to worry about making money. I could start day college and Mia… my sister, she could come stay with me.”

Her eyes glazed over as she described it- the perfect picture.

Dean had to say it. “You could still do that you know? Have her live with you. She’s at a boarding school, right?”

Y/N nodded. “Yeah she’s at boarding school. An hour and a half’s drive from here. But no, I couldn’t have her living here with me since I work nights. How could I ever leave her alone all night long? And then I didn’t make enough to rent out the whole apartment back when we started, I couldn’t trust any roommate with her.”

That part Dean could understand but he couldn’t understand why she worked nights in the first place and he asked her so.

“I’m used to it,” she shrugged. “I started out waitressing at Ellen’s, then I just got used to working nights.”

“You know, you could buy any apartment you wanted, why this one?” It was musty and the lift frigging never worked.

“Have you seen the basement?” She exulted. “It’s fantastic.”

Dean gave her a look. “You know, you’re really not helping the serial killer vibes.”

She laughed. “Seriously, come on!”

Dean let her drag him all the way back to the building, watched in ill concealed, morbid wonder when she popped open the lock like a pro and pulled him in.

She was right. It was massive. Apart from the columns that made their way to the bottom, the space was clear of any and all obstructions.

“I’m really not part of this if you’re thinking of turning this into a torture room.”

“Oh, c'mon!” she clapped on his back genially, taking in the gloomy view before them. “Trust me torture is fun… unless you’re the one being tortured. You have to agree that it’s kinda cool in an eerie way.”

Dean smirked, giving in to her teasing, but in reality, he couldn’t help but be awed about how much she had achieved at such a young age. What impressed him even more was how different her life goals were. People wanted money, popularity, fame. They wanted to be powerful and important. But Y/N? All she wanted was to study without having to worry about the money it cost her. All she wanted was to have her sister live with her and Dean could relate to that on so many levels.

Her goals out of life were so simple that it made her stand out in their simplicity. It brought out the goodness in her.

“Promise me something?” He asked

“What?” She seemed suddenly vulnerable.

“Promise me first,” he insisted.

Y/N looked scared and he knew she was scared because this required her to trust him. “Yeah, I promise.”

“Once you own the building, that nasty woman living on the ground floor is the first one you’ll kick out.”

She was taken aback, but a wide grin spread across her lips and she pointed at the dusty table stacked in the corner. “Who do you think our very first customer here is going to be?”

Dean doubled over laughing and after a second she joined in. “Actually you know what? That old hag might be into bondage for all we know. She might just take a liking for us after that.”

He cringed. “You had to put that image in my head, didn’t you?”

She shrugged. “Hey, you started it.”

Still laughing, they made their way to the front of the building and the lady in question popped her head out and tsk-ed at them disapprovingly. That made them go hysterical again.

“Hey Dean,” she asked finally falling onto the sofa next to him, fingers clutching stomach in a gesture identical to his.

“Yeah?”

“You still want that picture?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She seemed to grow speculative for a minute, then said. “I have the perfect place for you. What’re you doing this Sunday?”

“N-nothing, actually.” He’d have cancelled it even if he had a plan.

“I have something to do, first,” she said. “But if you don’t mind tagging along for that, we could go to this perfect place by the evening. You’ll get great pictures there, especially the sunset.”

Whole day with her? Dean knew he’d say something, or worse do something that would give away how he felt. But really? Could he even keep it in anymore? He didn’t think so. Besides, he was daring to hope that there might be something from her side, too. If that was true, he had to give them a chance.

His smile must have been brighter than she expected when he said, “I’d love to go, Y/N.”

He was wasn’t giving up on her, on them. Not without a damn fight anyway. Maybe, not even then.


	11. Chapter 11

“This is so smooth!” Y/N marveled for the nth time, and for the nth time Dean couldn’t keep the smug grin off his face.

“You know what?” she mused, “Maybe I’d have liked you much sooner if I knew you drove this smooth, sexy ride.”

“So you _do_ like me, huh?” Dean challenged, slyly.

Y/N shoved at his arm playfully. “Shut up!”

He knew the word ‘like’ didn’t imply the same meaning. What he meant was vastly different from what she concluded, but she had laughed at his words, and her fingers that touched his arm seemed to leave an imprint that lasted even after she’d withdrawn them.

“Where’re we going anyway?” Dean asked, trying to calm his nerves. How did he end up agreeing to spend a whole day with her? There was only way this could end up for him. He would blurt out something that would give away what he felt or do something and she would sense it. What scared him the most was that he wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted that to happen.

Blissfully unaware about the hurricane of emotions within him, Y/N smirked. “Just keep driving, Romeo. I’ll tell you when to take the turn.”

She didn’t mind the music he put on, in fact, she knew a lot of those black Sabbath songs by heart. Just to test his theory he tried on Metallica and then Styx, but she knew those too, even the exact moment the intros started. Dean was amazed. How could a person do both Britney Spears and Metallica?

“Oh, take the left!” She said suddenly.

“Jesus, woman!” Dean swore, making the turn just in time. “You can’t spring that on me like that. Some advance notice? This way you’ll get us both killed.”

She looked apologetic. “Sorry, I was too lost in the music. Listened to this a lot while growing up. Think this one is one of the first songs I remember,” she recalled. “Which one is yours?”

Dean offered her a small smile and even he could feel it was wistful. “So when I was kid, my mom used to sing ‘Hey Jude’ to me. I don’t actually remember it, but sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I can hear her croon to that music.”

“What else do you remember?”

“Well…” Dean frowned, “She used to cut the crusts off the bread for my sandwich, and she used to bake the best pies ever. Cherry and sometimes apple.”

“And?” Her eyes were hungry for more.

“Her hair was wavy, and it used to tickle my face when she hugged me. She had the most beautiful laugh in the world…” His voice had grown quieter, melancholy.

He looked at her, almost wishing his face didn’t give away the ache that his mother’s memories always brought with it, but her eyes were an open book. She looked like a starving kid staring at a Christmas Banquet from outside the glass. And it gutted Dean that it was the first imagery which came to his mind.

“You didn’t have a mom… did you?” He guessed.

Y/N shook her head. “I had a mother, alright. I just didn’t have a mother’s love.”

Dean slammed his foot on the breaks, the impala screeching to a halt on the side of the road. “What do you mean?”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and said it slowly. “She was an addict, sold everything she owned for it. When she ran out of things to sell, she sold her body and when that wasn’t enough, she sold me.”

It felt like a swift kick to Dean’s gut.

She opened her eyes, but there was no pain there, or hurt. She could have very well been reciting the story of some long lost tragic novel. One that wasn’t her own.

“I was seven then and even after all this time, I still remember the dinginess of the little shack she stashed me in, the stench of stale food, alcohol and meth. It was disgusting and sickening. There would be all those men coming in, trashy music and so much fighting. I would hide in the closet or behind the fridge. Good days were when she completely ignored me, got so high that she forgot I existed. I’d come out later in the morning when she was passed out on the greasy, stain-covered sofa and clean up all the mess. Take the trash out.”

Dean listened, his teeth grinding against one another.

“I used to pray every night that one day my dad would miraculously turn up and save me from that woman, from her beatings, her cursing, her rages, and, boy, did she fly into rages. She would fling furniture all over the place, pull my hair to catch hold of me when I tried to run away from her. It’s why I started tying it up and covering it in a beanie that I found in the trash. I was the reason for all her problems, I was the reason she had to be tied down to something. She loathed me so much.”

“One day, when there was nothing to sell, she called her dealer and sold me instead… and I…” Y/N laughed, but it was cold and mirthless. “I thought that man was taking me to my dad. I was happy. Luckily, he didn’t sell me into a brothel, he sold me into a pickpocket racket in New York. I did a good job at being sneaky anyway, thanks to past experience of closet hiding and such.”

She looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “You’re trying to picture what I looked like as a kid, don’t you?”

Dean knew she was trying to break the mood, but he was, in fact, doing the exact opposite. He was trying his damn best to _not_ imagine what she must have looked like- scared, abused and hurt.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “It actually kinda got better after that. Besides, the thing I remember most accurately while having lived with that woman was the gut-wrenching hunger. Being so hungry that I couldn’t even straighten up, my insides seemed to have shrunk.”

Dean shivered, bile rising to his throat, and the corners of his eyes started to sting.

“Turned out I was actually good at stealing, so I became a personal pet of the man who owned it, he liked me enough to allow liberties like making the food runs. I took my chance and actually made a run for it one day. Fled to Tampa by getting onto a bus.”

“Why?” He finally spoke, voice rough from all the emotion. “You could have stayed there and made money.”

He knew he should have held her, comforted her, but for once she wasn’t looking to be comforted. She just seemed to be reminiscing something that wasn’t particularly worth reminiscing. In fact, if anyone was shaken up, it was him. Badly so.

Y/N was still thinking over his question. “I don’t know actually. If I had stayed, I’d have headed that racket at some point. He seemed to think I was a prodigy. But I wanted to do something more with my life. I wanted to learn, I wanted to go to school, but I was too old to start school at 12. I mean, I knew how to read and write, but I wanted to be something more than a just the smartest street rat.”

She gave him a half smirk. “In Tampa, I roamed day and night trying to find a shelter till a woman caught me sleeping outside a building. Turned out it was a dance school and that she taught Ballet. Her name was Katherine. I gave her the rundown version of my story and begged her to not call child services on me. That I’d do anything in return. I’d heard the sort of shit that child services put you through and even worse with foster homes. There were kids from all sorts of background in the racket. I’d heard the sort of abuse that one of the runaway had to go through at a foster home. So she let me do the cleaning and other chores and offered to house me in the janitors office.”

“She made you work when you were 12?”

“Still better than drug abuse or theft,” she commented wryly. “Besides it wasn’t bad. Even though it was just a small cabin outside, it was sort of like my own place. I could eat the food they brought in for the Ballet dancers, use their showers and had enough money for a pair of shoes, couple decent clothes and books by the end of the month. That was way more than what I was ever used to.”

Dean was stumped. If he had ever felt any fleeting shreds pity for himself in the past years for having lost his mother, for what happened to his dad or that he and Sam had to grow up trying to make end meet, it paled in comparison to how he felt now. “What happened then?”

“I stayed there for three years,” she said, “Cleaned the studios, mopped the floor, did the dishes and other odd jobs in the day time, went to night school in the evenings and at night- ”

“You still worked nights?” He asked, aghast. “You’re crazier than I ever gave you credit for.” It was easier to be mad at her for being so reckless with her own life rather than come to terms with the horror he was feeling.

“It really wasn’t bad, Dean,” she said again. “It gave me something that I had never had the luxury of before- self respect. Miss Kathy didn’t treat me any differently. She was a hard ass to her students and she was a hard ass to me. I loved seeing all their pretty dresses, the shoes and the way their long limbs stretched endlessly. It was all so beautiful.”

“You didn’t learn it then?”

Abruptly, she chuckled. “You know nothing about professional ballet, do you?”

When he shook his head, she continued. “To be a professional ballet dancer, you have to be trained from the age of 4 or 5, so you can stand on your tiptoes like that. By 12, I had already overgrown the age where I could be trained. So, no Dean, even though I wanted to with all my heart, I never did learn ballet.”

Dean could recognize the note of wistfulness in her voice, and he wanted to turn back time so he could let her have what she wanted. Then he remembered.

“Wait… what about your sister? You had mentioned her, but hadn’t you…?”

“Hurled my ass to Tampa?”

“Yeah…”

“So when I turned 17, I had already graduated high school-”

“You finished ALL of school in just 5 years?” Dean interjected, both shocked and impressed.

Y/N conveniently brushed it off. “That’s not the point. The point is, that at 17, I got accepted into a University in New York and I went back to that same old place. In the first week itself, I ran into one of the kids I knew at the racket who’d become the local dealer, if you know what I mean, and then he told me that my mother… well, she’d died of a drug overdose and that her kid was currently being tossed around from one foster home to another. And I went- wait a second, that’s me…”

“So Mia is-”

“My step-sister, yeah,” she admitted. “And let me tell you, it threw me off like nothing ever had. Me not knowing who my father was, was one thing, but I knew the crowd that crashed at that woman’s dump, I knew which of those could have been the father. But whoever he was had obviously not shown any interest, otherwise the kid wouldn’t be bouncing around fosters. And I- I was torn. I wanted to meet this kid, but I didn’t want any part of the cluster-fuck of a legacy that the woman had left behind. At last, I decided that I’d just see this child one time and then never again, but when I reached the school, I found this little girl, not more than 8 years of age eating a cold cut sandwich alone.”

The emotions that were completely absent when she had been describing her own hardships, finally made an appearance. Her voice grew tender, those stunning eyes were pained as she said, “She was just so fragile, and sad, and completely alone. It broke my heart. I could see me in her, but without the will to get away.”

“You took her in when you barely even knew her?” Jesus, what was even this girl?

Y/N pursed her lips at the awed tone of his voice. “Don’t make a hero out of me. I swear I wanted to make a freaking run for it. I loved my life where I didn’t have to answer to anyone. If I didn’t love anyone, no one could hurt me, right? But then there was this girl… just something about her eyes.”

“What did you do then?”

“A yearlong battle. Fake documents, authorities, all of that till I won her custody. Miss Kathy vouched to be a guardian. And Mia… the sheer look of happiness in her face the day they declared her custody… I’ve memorized that instant to my memory.”

Dean couldn’t help smiling with her.

“You know what happened after that. We moved here, all the way to California because there was too much past in that city for both of us.”

“So you gave up on college?”

“What else was there to do? I couldn’t afford both our education, now, could I? And I was hell bent on giving her the best. A few years here and there wouldn’t matter to me. So I drew up the game plan, enrolled her in the boarding school and took up the job at Ellen’s.”

She looked at Dean then, “You know how it is, don’t you? Having someone love you, be dependent on you so intrinsically that you’d give up all your luxuries for them. That you’d put their well-being, their needs before yours and do it willing, happily even.”

Dean looked away, rolling his eyes upwards so that the wetness there wouldn’t make an appearance. Truth was, he was overwhelmed, something was stuck in his throat. This is exactly why she had understood his reasons for doing what he did for Sam, because she’d done the same thing, if not more.

He had never felt like a martyr for putting his life on hold to make sure that Sam had everything, the reality was far from it. The way he had lived his life was his choice. Nothing he’d ever given up felt like a sacrifice because it was a natural choice. Sam was every bit worth it. But there had been no scarcity of times when people had judged him for it, called him a fool for letting Sam have it all. Rufus had told him over and over that Sam would go ahead to be some rich hotshot lawyer and forget him completely, while Dean would be left trying to make the ends meet up till the very end of his days in the musty Lawrence. 

Even Benny, who was his best friend, thought Dean was overdoing it. He’d never said it, but Dean could see it in Benny’s eyes sometimes that he thought Dean was allowing Sam to take advantage, to let himself reach the top while Dean remained a bottom-feeder. Benny’s view came from the love he felt for Dean, but it was still far from the truth.

The truth was, Sam’s existence had validated Dean. After what happened to their dad, Sam was traumatized, and so was Dean. But in looking after his brother, he had found the strength to look after himself too. Sam’s vulnerability, his immovable faith in his older brother had kept Dean sane through the shit storm that had followed. He’d depended on Sam as much as Sam depended on him, albeit differently, but no one had known that.

No one except the girl sitting next to him, because she had done the same. And finally, for the first time in his life Dean felt like he was understood, that she was seeing right through him, and feeling what he felt.

What was the point of looking away from her now? He turned to face her, eyes moist, lips trembling, for her struggle and his own. She in turn, put her hand on his where it rested on his thigh.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

He gulped and nodded, eyes still cast down over where their hands met. It felt strange to not feel guilty over expressing his emotions. Her grip on his hand tightened and Dean let out a nervous laugh.

“It’s silly that I’m the one having a chick flick moment over your story. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

Y/N shrugged. “It’s in the past. What’re you gonna do about it?” Then with a complete poker face she said, “Besides, trust me, torture is a fantastic way of letting go of the PTSD.”

Dean lost it despite himself, as he bent over the dash laughing so hard, it was cathartic. “You’re something else.”

“Also what the people strapped to the table tell me.”

Still laughing, Dean put the car back on the road.

“Where to now?”

She pointed, visibly excited, “Just the next right and drive for about 10 minutes. It’s at the end of the road.”

Dean finally managed a genuine smile. “You’ve still not told me where we’re headed. I swear if it turns out to be a convention of serial killers, I’m out of here.”

“The convention is lot more fun than your college,” she smirked, seemingly back in the game.

“There’s one more thing though,” she said, hands wrangling in her lap. Suddenly her unpredictable mood shifted ever so slightly and she was nervous. Dean drew in a breath, apprehensive of what she was going to say. She hadn’t batted an eyelid while narrating her past, but if this was making her anxious, so…

“It’s about the other night, you know?” She scratched at her arms, hugging herself. “After… after the fair…”

“Yeah?” Dean hardly dared to breathe. “What about it?”

“I- I was waiting for you and I just dozed off on your bed.”

He was quick to alleviate, “Hey that’s okay. I don’t mind.” Not the way her hair had been splayed around her, not the pout, not the calm expression. Of course he hadn’t minded any of it.

“It’s not that,” she continued. “I know you slept on the floor that night. I just wanted to thank you for that.”

“It’s nothing.” It was the most obvious thing to do. Had she expected any less of him?

“It’s not what I mean,” she added slowly, quietly. “I meant that I wouldn’t have minded if you had slept right there besides me instead of the cold, hard floor. I trust you, Dean.”

The emotion that coursed through him in that second, had no name. Here was the girl who had been downright hostile the first day for just offering sympathy was now trusting him enough to willingly share a bed. How was he to stop hope from growing in his heart? If she really trusted him so much, maybe… maybe she really did like him. He was trying to grasp the true extent of the overwhelming feeling when she exclaimed.

“We’re here!”

Dean looked outside to see that they were before a gate leading towards what looked like a community hall.

“Where are we?” He murmured.

Y/N grinned. “It’s a ballet recital.”

“We’re going to watch ballet?” What?

She was obviously proud when she shook her head. “Not any ballet. It’s Mia’s recital. Just because I never got to learn it, doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t either.”

“Would you like to meet my sister, Dean?”

It was with some trepidation that Dean replied. “Of course, I’d love to.” After all, he had to meet the sister that Y/N loved with all her heart. Just like he loved Y/N with all his heart.


	12. Chapter 12

The auditorium was dimly lit. And the meager lights that remained were dimming soon, only the spotlights trained on the stage were shining bright. They had made it just in the nick of the time.

Y/N ushered him on one of the seats at the very back and he was suddenly highly hyper aware of how close their bodies were in the darkness. All he had to do was pull her close and then his lips would be on hers. However, he knew that was out of limits so he just settled for extending his hand. Y/N took it willingly enough. He couldn’t see the expression on her face in the darkness, but he imagined it to be the one of a kind smile she reserved only for him.

The music that was playing as a soft background score, picked up the rhythm and the girls entered the stage one by one. The notes and the rhythm was oddly melancholy even for the beginning of a recital. Before he could ask, Y/N leaned in and whispered in his ear, her breath hot on his skin, “It’s the first scene from Swan Lake.“

Something of a recognition flickered in Dean. He might have heard that name once or twice, nevertheless, he settled in the seat, relishing the touch of the smooth skin of palm against his. There were very few things he knew to be more pleasurable than this.

He had to say that all the girls were exceptional. It was beyond him how much talent the little girls seemed to have. Periodically, Y/N would lean over and softly explain the little things to him that he had no way of knowing otherwise, like the names and the characters, but allowing him to understand and feel the story on his own. And he did feel it. Despite all his earlier reservations about Ballet, his heart reached out for Odette and the Prince. There was just so much more to it than simply a dance performed with excessive precision. He could see why the girls had to be trained from the tender age of 4 or 5 to achieve the feat of being able to stand like that.

It wasn’t only about the talent though, there was something very magical about the way it was performed, and more than that, about the story itself. He could feel the pain of the two lovers, how Odette couldn’t just tell the Prince that she transformed into a swan. So moved was he in the story, that his clap was amongst the loudest in the theater.

"Didn’t expect you to be so into Ballet,” Y/N said slyly, her soft voice ringing in his ears despite the eerie music.

“I didn’t expect either,” he said, surprised, overwhelmed.

Her silky fingers around his tightened. It was her way of letting him know that she knew exactly how he felt. Dean glanced at her, expecting her knowing look. Instead, she was watching him wild-eyed, an unnamed emotion brimming in those odd eyes. It looked like she wanted to say something, but was either too scared or too excited. He couldn’t know which. Without thinking, without considering, Dean reached out to her, his fingertips barely grazing her shoulder.

She seemed to have stopped breathing completely, and her eyes, for a split second flickered towards his lips. She was so close now, that Dean could feel her sweet breath hit his face. All he had to do was lean in…

The curtains dropped, and lights flooded the theater. The crowd had risen to its feet.

Y/N whipped back too quickly, clearing her throat and looking anywhere but at him. She fidgeted with her dark purple beanie.

Dean was frozen, trying to wrap his head around what had just happened. But every theory that his addled brain came up with pointed towards the same answer, that Y/N had wanted it too. Had he imagined it? But how was that possible? Or was it?

The girls exited the stage gracefully, and Y/N cleared her throat loudly again.

“Come, let’s go backstage.”

She dragged him by his hands, and he wondered if he was even allowed backstage.

The girls were all gathered there, squealing, hugging each other, celebrating a successful recital. When they saw Y/N, a group of them split and hurried to her excitedly.

“Y/N!” One of them gushed, “We did it! We did it.”

Y/N bent down and hugged the girl. “Of course you did! You girls were brilliant out there. I had tears in my eyes.”

“It’s all because of you,” said another, the one who had played Rothbart. “You are the one who truly deserves this.” She pulled the crown from the hair of the girl who played Odette and placed in on Y/N’s beanie. It promptly toppled and fell into Y/N’s hands. Everyone laughed.

Dean looked around all the happy, sometimes tear-streaked faces, trying to recognize something that was similar to Y/N in their features. The hair, the eyes… something that looked like her, but it was hard to judge, it was hard to tell.

Why were all of them crouching over her? There were at least six girls who were vying for Y/N’s attention. They wanted her to tell them that their dance was good, that they had done well. They were looking at her for validation the way a little kid would look at the mother.

But one girl wasn’t paying attention to Y/N- the girl who had acted out the part of Odette. At first, Dean concluded that she was probably upset that her pretty tiara had been pulled out of her hair so suddenly, without her permission and that she was angry about it. What did Dean know about how young girls’ mind worked. But no, the more he saw, the more he realized that Odette barely cared about the tiara. In fact, she was staring right back at him. Ignoring all the chaos around a very overwhelmed Y/N, who was trying to listen to all the girls at once, Odette walked up to him.

Then she smiled, clear as the day and extended her hand. “You’re Dean, aren’t you?”

He smiled in return. “And you’re Mia.”

She nodded.

“You were brilliant out there,” he jerked his head towards the stage.

“Thank you!” She bowed her head graciously, then asked, “How’d it go with the douchebag professor?”

Dean remembered that she was the one who had helped Y/N with all the diagrams in the imposition. “Better than I expected,” he said honestly. “He didn’t trouble me after that. I guess he moved on to torture other people. I owe you one for the help on that.”

Mia shrugged, her eyes glinting mischievously. “Now you said it, you can’t take that back. I’ll up with something that you can do for me in return by the end of the day.”

One of the girls in the background whelped in frustration. She was about 7 years of age. The youngest in the bunch. “This thing is not fitting!” She waved the tiara. Dean could see Y/N try to dismiss her but Mia yelled. “Just take of the damn Beanie. It’s boiling outside, anyway.”

Mia wasn’t anything like Y/N as far as looks went. Her dark hair didn’t quite have the same texture, her eyes were a completely different color and her smile had a quality of its own, but Dean couldn’t help but feel he was missing something. Like something about this girl still reminded him of Y/N.

“I have to go get the refreshments for everyone from the counter,” she said apologetically. “You mind waiting here?”

Dean looked around to see that Y/N was completely invisible behind the group of overzealous girls in tutus.

“You need help with that?”

“That would be great,” Mia grinned, taking a seat to remove her shoes. She replaced them with more practical looking sneakers. The combination of the bright red sneakers over the pale blue tutu and tights made him smile. She really was Y/N’s sister.

Dean followed her to the other end of the theatre, where the audience had gathered for a quick bite. People stopped Mia to praise and congratulate her for the stunning performance. She was much better at handling compliments than Y/N was- sweet and appreciative. At the very end of the buffet, she grabbed a huge upturned box and started piling the energy drink bottles into it. Dean rushed ahead to help her with it.

“Hey, how did you know who I was?” He asked, finally.

She raised her eyebrow, as if the answer was obvious. “Y/N barely talks to five people, and I know all of them. You weren’t one of those, so I just took the next best guess.”

He laughed. Of course.

Mia’s brow furrowed, and she said hesitantly. “I was eager to see you, actually.”

Trepidation gripped him.

“Why?”

She seemed to regret having said that loud, and looked even more conflicted about what she was about to say. “Well… Y/N, she seems different since she’s met you.”

He gulped, both wanting to ask the question, and not wanting the answer to it. “Different how?”

“For one, she laughs more.”

Dean was surprised.

Mia continued. “I mean… I’ve never heard her talk about anyone the way she talks about you. And she just seems so happy that I thought… I thought-”

“There was something going on between us,” Dean completed quietly.

“Well… yeah.”

The silence in the wake of his words stretched awkwardly. She had quit piling in the food items and was waiting for an answer and he didn’t want to give one.

He cleared his throat, wishing he had a different answer. “No… it’s not like that.”

Mia sighed. Like she wished the answer was different too, but also like she had been expecting the one he gave. “She’ll never go out looking for it,” Mia muttered, going back to sorting the stuff in the box.

“Looking for what?” He couldn’t help but ask.

She looked him straight in the eye. “Love, Dean. Love.”

He understood then, why, despite all the physical dissimilarities, she reminded him of Y/N- because the intensity in both their eyes was the same- it was scorching. They were both way older than their years.

Mia elaborated, talking hurriedly, like she had been waiting to unload it all. “You don’t know her, she just pushes everything… everyone that she could love away from her. She’s just so afraid to show it. Even if the person loves her right back.”

Dean shook his head. Having heard the way Y/N talked about her sister, he knew that wasn’t exactly true. “She wants you around, Mia. She wants you to stay with her.”

“Oh, I know,” Mia said, patiently. “I didn’t mean physically. I meant she never opens her heart to anyone. Not even to me. I can’t say she’s had an easy life… far from it, but she doesn’t believe that anything good can befall her by chance. It’s ingrained in her head that every bit of happiness has to be earned. That she needs to work hard for every second of love.”

Dean was stunned. How was a mere fourteen year old girl so wise? He shuddered thinking about what Mia might have had to live through to be able to think so deeply.

Something in her words wasn’t adding up though. “But, I’ve seen her smile. She wanted to come to the fair.” He had seen her laugh on the Ferris wheel, seen her dance with joy when they shot down the can. Dean could feel her curves pushing against him with perfect clarity when she had hugged him afterwards. “I’ve seen her happy.”

Mia gave him a cryptic smile. “Ever considered that it’s happened since _you_ moved in?”

Whoa.

She nodded to herself. “That’s what I though. It’s why I wanted to meet you.”

“C'mon, help me put this on to the cart.”

Dean moved the box onto the cart, considering her words. She was implying exactly what Sam had openly accused him of- That he was ignoring the glaring fact that Y/N liked him, too, and neither of them were acknowledging it. This gave a whole new meaning to Y/N’s closeness after the recital.

“Pull the cart,” Mia suggested. “I’ll push it from behind.” Her eyes were cast down and her voice low; it looked like she regretted impulsively giving away her thoughts.

“You know,” Dean said, walking ahead, not looking at her. “I just never know what side is up with your sister. She is so unpredictable even with her unpredictability that I don’t know what will land me in trouble and what won’t.” He hadn’t said it explicitly. But Mia was smart, surely she could understand that he was asking for advice in regards to Y/N.

He heard Mia giggle. “She’s predictable in one thing though- She’s a good person through and through. Better than about anyone I know.”

He nodded, whirring the tiny cart towards the ramps leading to the backstage.

“I was looking forwards to meet you, too,” Dean admitted. “I wanted to see if you were anything like your sister.”

Mia laughed, huffing. “And am I?”

“A bit, yeah,” Dean admitted.“I couldn’t recognize you, there were so many girls backstage…”

Perhaps his voice gave away the curiosity.

“You’re wondering why there were so many of them fawning over her, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“She pays for their training.”

The handle slipped from Dean’s grasp as he came to a standstill. He whirled around to face Mia as the cart slid down the ramp. “What?”

“Yeah… most of those girls come from a poor background. Y/N sponsors for their Ballet classes and even the schooling for a couple of them. If it weren’t for her, they’d be rotting in some alley or foster home, too.”

She gave him a knowing look, taking in his astounded expression. “Like I said, she’s predictable about how good she is.”

It was in an amazed state that he pushed the trolley back to the stage. The girls weren’t around anymore. Neither was Y/N.

“You okay?” Mia asked, taking a seat on an upturned stool, a soft smile playing on her lips. She knew exactly how special her sister was, and it warmed Dean’s heart knowing that Y/N had someone like that in her life.

He crouched down on the floor besides the stool she was sitting on.

“Can I tell you a secret?” He asked.

“Yeah?” Her eyes were soft and her skin glistened under the reflected lights.

“I think I’m in love with your sister.” Saying it out loud both freed him and scared the living daylights out of him.

She scrunched her nose cutely. “I guessed as much. You should see the way you look at her.”

Dean could feel the blood rising to his cheeks in response to her words. Could Y/N see the way he looked at her, too? Was it that obvious?

“Can I tell you a secret as well?” She asked conspiratorially. “I think Y/N loves you, too. You should see the way _she_ looks at you when you aren’t looking.”

A bauble of laughter broke out at the entrance and both of them backed away from each other. The girls came into view, with Y/N tagging alongside.

She wasn’t wearing the beanie anymore, instead her beautiful hair was tucked into an elegant twist at the nape of her neck. The beautiful tiara perched on her head in a delicate fashion. Two loose curls had sneaked out on either side, framing her facing perfectly.

Dean forgot how to breathe.

“Pssstttt… you’re looking at her like that now,” Mia muttered from the corner of her mouth, and Dean made a violent effort to control his expression.

“You… you look great,” he said, when Y/N was near him.

She clearly didn’t know how to take that compliment because it was evident from her darting eyes that she was wishing for the earth to split and swallow her whole right about then.

“You’re supposed to say Thank You,” Mia nudged her, smiling cleverly.

“This wasn’t my idea,” Y/N said, looking mortified.

She made a move to remove the tiara, but Dean caught her hand. “Let it be. It looks like it took a lot of work to put it there.” The girls nodded in vehement agreement.

It a sight to see Y/N being adored like that. He could have watched her laugh and blush all day- A princess complete with a tiara. And, boy, did she look beautiful. It would be a sin now to look away from her. A resplendency like that demanded attention, it deserved affection. How was he ever supposed to look away now?

It was a tearful goodbye when the bus to the hostels rolled in. The girls all hugged Y/N and walked into the bus one by one. Mia was the last one remaining.

“Don’t forget about thanksgiving,” Y/N reminded her, then paused, eyeing Dean. “We have guests over though.”

Mia raised her eyebrows, to which Y/N replied, “Dean’s brother Sam is coming over.”

“Thanksgiving dinner with a full table and sane people? Who would have thought?” Mia muttered, leaning forward to hug Y/N. “We are actually progressing towards being functional human beings.”

Y/N laughed at the morbid humor that made Dean’s heart constrict.

Mia then turned to him.

“It was great to meet you, Dean,” she said earnestly.

He extended his hand. “Trust me, the pleasure was all mine.”

Instead of taking his hand, she reached out on her tiptoes and threw her hands around him. Dean had to lower himself a little to hold her.

“Your secret is safe with me,” she whispered in his ear. “But don’t keep it a secret too long, okay?”

“Okay,” he promised. She winked once, nodded towards Y/N then followed her friends onto the bus.

They watched as the bus rolled out, all the girls, whose names Dean had memorized by now, waved at them till it disappeared around the bend and out of sight.

“Maybe, just maybe if I own the apartment, these girls will finally have a home of their own,” Y/N said, eyes still on the bend. Then, too quickly, they found his, “What was Mia whispering in your ear?”

“You caught that, huh?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Of course I did. Now, what did she say?” Y/N demanded.

Dean shrugged. “You’re not the President. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“She’s my sister!”

“Also an independent citizen. She doesn’t have to tell you everything, either.”

Y/N huffed, crossing her hands beneath her chest, exasperated. Only, she looked like a demanding princess thanks to the tiara. Abruptly Dean burst out laughing, doubling over in the middle of the street. It only pissed her more.

“You know, I had forgotten how insufferable you are,” she said, glaring at him, but it served only in making Dean laugh harder. In all his self-absorbing over unrequited love, he had missed this so much- the pure, unabashed banter that had started and sometimes defined their friendship.

“And I had forgotten how satisfying it is to annoy you,” he retorted and she looked like she was about to punch him into the orbit of the earth.

“Alright,” he said, making an effort to control his laughter. “She promised me that she’d keep my secret.”

“What secret?”

“Wouldn’t be one, if I told you now, would I?”

She stared at him in blatant disbelief. “You just met her!”

“And she seemed trustworthy. So I told her.”

“Tell me!”

Dean gave up. How could he deny her anything at all. “One condition…”

“What?”

“You take me to this spot and I get all the pictures I need. Then I’ll tell you.”

She considered for a second, then came to the conclusion that this was probably the best deal she was going to get.

“Then what’re you waiting for, Romeo? Get in the damn car.”

Dean grinned at how eager she was. So much so that it had even slipped her mind that she was still parading around like a princess.

As he started the car, Dean glanced at her once more, this strong, beautiful girl who had trusted him enough to tell him about her past, let him walk into the part of her life that mattered the most to her. It wasn’t the complete truth, but it was something and he was willing to hold on to. He was also willing to hold on to the promise he made to Mia, he was going to tell Y/N that he was in love with her. And for the first time, he was hopeful, that she might actually like him back.


	13. Chapter 13

Dean had been driving for a while now, almost all the way back home. Y/N had instructed him to keep driving till they reached the northern end of their college town, then take the sharp turn towards the beach tip. It was still another fifteen minutes and then they would reach the place she had intended them to be in.

Dean wasn’t tired of driving, not at all, but he was stiff having sat through the recital. Even then, he didn’t regret a single minute. If anything, he was grateful for having agreed to spend the day with Y/N. Because in the span of those few hours, he felt like he’d known more about her than in all the time he’d spent with her. In fact, his stomach was doing flips merely thinking about what he was about to do.

He gazed side-wards to see Y/N dozing against the rim of the car. She was snoring softly, a frown etched upon her brow. Did she always sleep like that? Tensed? Now that Dean knew about her past, he could guess the types of horrors she dreamed about. He shuddered as he pushed the thought away. Again, he had to control the crazy urge to bend over and kiss her forehead.

With a lot of constraint, he willed his eyes off of her and on the road ahead. What sort of temperament caused her to be so hard with some people while so soft with others? He briefly wondered if it was a dual personality thing. For all he knew, maybe she was a vigilante, saving young girls from predators at night. A image of Y/N in a catsuit flashed before his eyes. It was incomplete because he actually had no clue how fitted clothes would look on her. He tried not to think about _that_. Either way, she was a real life batman.

He smirked proudly at the road ahead.

The sky was turning a brilliant shade of fiery orange, the edges tinted with a unique mauve. Y/N was right, he thought, as he parked along the edge where the road ended. It was going to be a beautiful picture.

“Y/N?” He urged softly, “We’re here.”

She stirred and opened her eyes, blinking rapidly like she didn’t know where she was.

“Dean?” She asked, confused, her voice even huskier than usual because of the sleep.

“Wake up, princess!” He couldn’t help but tease her.

Her hands found her hair, which was still tightly tucked into the tiara, the pretty curls still framing her face.

“We’re here,” he reminded again.

Y/N looked out of the car window at the steadily lowering sun, then sat up quickly.

“Shit!” She cursed.

“What?”

“We should have gotten here sooner… there’s a hike. It’ll, at least, take half an hour.”

Dean smiled. “There’s still time. C'mon!”

She quickly jumped out of the car, forgetting about the tiara. Dean removed his jacket and slung the camera around his neck and followed her.

Two things became very obvious, very quickly. First, that Dean wasn’t as fit as he gave himself the credit for. Sure, he could lift heavy things. He’d been used to it since the day he stepped into a garage, but hiking, and climbing up steep slopes was proving a lot more difficult that he would have imagined. Within fifteen minutes, Dean was heaving and had to pause to catch his breath. Dammit! Sam should never know of this.

The other thing he discovered was that, Y/N was like a gazelle or something. Her feet barely even touched the dusty earth before they were off again. It was almost like she was a wood-nymph. Light and graceful. And fast… damn, was she fast. Dean was left playing catch up in the dust.

“C'mon, old man,” she laughed from a distance ahead of him. “We have to make it to the top before the sunset, ya know.”

“I-I know,” Dean huffed, a little mad at himself for having to tag along. So much for impressing her.

At long last they reached the top. The climbing slopes gave way to the flat land suddenly as the ferns shifted, he saw it clearly up ahead. One side of the view had high sheer cliffs of solid sandstone, rising out of the clear blue water. They weren’t exactly jagged, more like they had been specifically designed to give the terrain an aesthetic appeal. The sea itself stretched seamlessly to the left, without a visible end. The red sky above cast a shadow of an unnamed color in the water below. It was ethereal.

“Wow…” Dean gasped.

“I know, right?” Y/N was proud.

He held the Camera to his eye, adjusting the dials and clicked a couple of pictures. As many as he clicked, he felt he could never capture that sort of beauty in a 4" X 8" square. Same could be said about Y/N, too.

Just like the other day, eventually he was reduced to clicking her pictures. A little voice in the back of his head recalled that he had to ask Y/N about the magazine picture from the fair which had her in it, but the deliberation was too fleeting to fully form a coherent thought.

The sun went down pretty quickly after that, but Dean was certain that he had gotten a few amazing shots of the beach and the promenade. Y/N was a genius, she knew the angle would flatter the best locations of the beach. From the vantage, he could spy a couple making out in middle of the waves. Two girls. They were holding hands, but also holding each other. Just then, one of them pushed the other into the water and then jumped in after her. It was too far away to know for sure, but they seemed to be laughing and Dean found himself laughing with them; then stopped when he realized what he was doing, quickly looking towards Y/N to see if she had noticed.

Of course she had.

“You look good when you laugh,” she said, then reached out with her hand. “Let me click a picture of you. C'mon, give me the camera.”

“What? No!”

He felt self conscious all of a sudden. He didn’t want to get a picture clicked, but more than that, he was apprehensive about Y/N going back to see the pictures that he already had clicked. A lot of them were hers.

“You scared I’ll break your precious little Nikon?” She teased.

Now he had to give it to her.

“C'mon, Romeo, don’t overthink this!” It was so easy for her to say. _Everything_ was so easy for her to say especially when he had been beating himself up for the past couple of weeks by overthinking what was between them.

He handed her the camera without another word, not knowing what to do next.

“Strike a pose,” she urged, fiddling with the dial. She already knew her way around a digital camera.

“What do you think I am? A ballet dancer,” Dean sulked, but struck a conventional pose, anyway, with hands crossed beneath his chest.

“Aren’t you the eye-candy,” she grinned wickedly from behind the camera, clicking away madly. That was enough to disgruntle Dean. It wasn’t fair that he had to capture her furtively when she could do it openly. It wasn’t her fault though. She had asked, while he couldn’t even draw up the courage to say three small words.

Nevertheless, her compliment did make his cheeks feel warm. If only he could know for sure whether she was really appreciative or all her words were in jest, it would be a little easier to admit out loud how he felt for her.

The couple on the beach trailed out of the water, dragging each other by the arm.

“Here.” She handed back the camera, eyes following his towards the lovers, pensive even if her lips were stretched into a smile.

For a second Dean tried to get into her head, tried to climb into her shoes and see things from her perspective. A girl who had never known a lasting and unconditional love. Being rejected right from her birth? How must that feel? Of course she longed for permanence and reassurance in love, for it to be selfless. But then again, wasn’t that the whole point of love? If it wasn’t selfless, was it really even love?

“C'mon,” he said, staring at the now almost dark sky.“We should get going.” 

She caught hold of his hand to stop him. “Let’s wait a while.” She paused then added hesitantly. “The stars look beautiful when it gets really dark. I come here alone at times, when I have a lot on my mind.”

Y/N went to sit by the edge. It wasn’t steep by any means, not up there, at least, and Dean followed suit, sitting by her side. He held out his hand and she took it as if it was the most natural thing. They sat in silence till the last vestiges of the hiding sun scattered to make way for a dark purple canvas of the evening sky, which was sprinkled with oh so many stars. The more he tried to see, the more stars he found.

“It’s beautiful,” he gasped.

“What? Haven’t you seen the night sky before?” She asked.

He tried to remember the last time he’d actually done this. It was probably with Sam on the bumper of the Impala on a long lost 4th July night.

Dean shook his head. “Not in a long while.”

“No girlfriends who wanted to play footsie under the sky?” She asked. Even though her tone was light, he could see that it was taking her some effort to keep it that way. She was both curious and apprehensive. That made him smirk.

He replied anyway. “Never really had the sort of time to hook-up back in Lawrence.”

She slapped his shoulder. “What’re you talking about? Stud like you and no action?”

He gave her a sideway glance. Y/N looked furtive and it made him laugh.

“I got action alright, but mostly just random one night stands.”

“Not the type for relationships?” Apprehensive again.

Dean paused, wondering how to phrase it. “Well… it was more about how the other party wasn’t the relationship type.”

“I-I don’t get it,” she asked.

Dean sighed. “I was _stuck_ in Lawrence, Y/N. It’s a sleepy, moldy town. Nothing exciting ever happens there, except me of course.” He winked and she rolled her eyes.

“I had a couple girlfriends, but they wanted more out of life than that stupid old town, and I of course, couldn’t leave.”

He thought back to Casey, his high-school cheerleader girlfriend, and then Lisa right after high school. One couldn’t handle the fact that he would never be anything more than a mechanic and the other broke up when she went to off college. Dean didn’t begrudge them their life choices. Hell, he hadn’t been particularly serious about them either. Besides, it had been years ago now. After that it was mostly just flings.

“You never gave relationships a shot after that?” She asked, ever curious.

“What was the point? It would all have ended the same way. Besides I never found anyone I really liked.” _Up until now._

Y/N looked thoughtful, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip. It was very distracting.

“You could have ditched that town long back,” she pointed out. “Sure there was Sam to think of, but you could have started over anywhere. Why just stick around?”

She had asked the one question he hoped would never come up.

He stayed quiet. At first she waited, but soon it was obvious that he wasn’t going to answer.

“Sorry if I overstepped my mark or something.” Y/N shifted back, removing her hand from his and drew into herself with her arms crossed in front of her. Suddenly, she looked awkward.

The last thing that he wanted was for her to withdraw like that.

“It.. it was because of our dad,” he said slowly.

“Dad?” Y/N’s eyes narrowed.

He’d never mentioned his dad before. And from the way even Y/N skirted around the topic, Dean was sure she had assumed his story to be something similar to hers except that his mom loved him.

It was far from the truth. His dad hadn’t abandoned them. Not in the traditional way, at least.

“Dean?” she called, tentatively. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“I want to,” he said finally. And he meant it. Truth was that he was tired of carrying the weight alone. There was of course Sam, but he never mentioned it. As far as Sam was concerned, his family started and ended with Dean. There was no one else for him and Dean couldn’t blame Sam for it. The boy had never known a mother’s love, or a father’s pride. The fact that Sam’s whole family was his brother was both a source of happiness and sadness to Dean.

“My mom… she died in a nursery fire,” he spoke, then looked over at Y/N who was wound tight like a spring. “But you already know that part.”

She nodded. Dean remembered telling her that at the fair. More than that, he remembered just how much it had affected her.

He continued. “My dad… he loved my mom a lot. A lot. And her death… he didn’t take it well.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was a short-circuit, Y/N,” he said, hurriedly, wanting to get it all out. “The fuse didn’t go off like it should have, which is why the lights burst and the room caught fire… but my dad, he was convinced that something else did it. He convinced himself that he saw a man’s figure in the fire from outside the room when we barged in to get Sammy.”

Her eyes were wide. “A man?”

“Yeah. It’s what he told the cops. But no one believed him because the Sheriff’s office confirmed that it was a case of accidental death. For a while he was quiet, but then he would go off days at a stretch trying to find the man or whatever he thought it was that killed mom. He sawed off shotguns, made salt circles and carried iron. He even taught us how to shoot. There would be no food, no electricity at times. Finally, the child services got roped in, and my dad’s colleague at the garage, Rufus Turner got involved to clear his name. He tried to get dad to see sense, but as time passed, his thoughts just got crazier… the man in the room became a demon and he was convinced that Sam was cursed or something.”

It was both a relief and horror to recount that. Dean hadn’t spoken about it in years. In fact, he had never spoken about it to anyone at all. He and Sam carried that one dark secret with them.

“Then what happened?” Y/N’s voice was barely above a whisper in the dark.

“Sam was in 5th grade when one day dad called him something particularly horrid, convinced that he was somehow demonic. By then, he’d started drinking so much that he was barely awake at all. And I…” Dean put his face in his hands. “I was scared, Y/N. I was scared that in his drunkenness, he’d hurt my brother. So, I called Rufus, and he called the cops.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah… They didn’t take him into custody, of course, but after a long check-up, they admitted him into a psychiatric facility. The doctor used heavy words like unresolved trauma and crap like that. He just couldn’t deal with the fact that something as accidental and fateful like a random wire trip could snatch his wife away from him. It was easier to believe that there was a demonic power at work there, easier to pin all his anger on that one thing and ignore the pain. Because she had been in there to check on Sam, the rage got internally diverted towards him. I mean, he loved Sam. I knew that, but he was just convinced that the kid was going to grow up to be a monster… it was so complicated… and just so… so…” He couldn’t find the words.

Dean felt a hand on his shoulder. He could imagine the look in her eyes from the pressure of her fingertips.

“We used to visit him there, I more than Sam, because after a while, the treatment started working. Some days he understood that what he had convinced his mind was wrong, but on other days he would just fly into these rages… and it was impossible to control him. He passed away about a year and a half ago. The house that was his, where we had grown up became ours legally. Sam convinced me to sell it off so I could move here and pay for the college.”

“That’s nice of him…” She murmured, voice soft but also rough like coarse velvet.

“Yeah. Until he was there, moving away from Lawrence was out of question. We couldn’t abandon him. He was the only family Sam and I had apart from each other.”

For the first time in his life Dean was absolutely sure that if turned now, there would be nothing but empathy in Y/N’s eyes. No pity, no disgust. There would be no aversion towards him or his dad. This was the sort of surety that only love could bring.

When he did turn, Dean was shocked. Y/N’s eyes were watery. It wasn’t just empathy, it was pain, distinct and raw. She threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. Dean had to stagger his hand against the ground to gain balance. For a split second he didn’t know what to do. Y/N just hugged him tighter, her fingers digging into his muscles. She hid her face in his chest. He could feel her breath through the single layer fabric of his shirt.

Slowly, he put his hand over her back, drawing her closer. “It’s okay.”

She just shook his head.

Dean remembered how stoic she was while sharing her own story just this morning and how he had to control his emotions because it was too much to handle. Y/N’s reaction was exactly like that. But unlike him, she wasn’t holding back. She sought the comfort of his arms willingly enough.

He let her draw the comfort, allowing himself to loosen up and experience what complete acceptance feels like. It felt like this.

There was nothing more to say as they sat like that, huddled together. Y/N turned her face towards the beach after a while, breathing deeply. He didn’t dip his head to catch the expression on her face even though he wanted to. If it was something she wanted him to see, she wouldn’t hide it.

On his part, Dean was aware of every single movement. Her heartbeat and his own. Her unique scent, the soft sound of her breath. Everything. It felt like he was living more than he was used to.

“We should go,” she sighed, reluctant.

Of course. She had to be at work. In fact, it was already late by her standards.

Carefully, Dean unfolded his arms, letting her walk out of his embrace. She didn’t say a word as she climbed back down. It didn’t seem as hard climbing down the trail as it had been in the evening. He followed her as quickly as he could.

Y/N didn’t meet his eyes even as she climbed into the car. Dean wanted to break the silence, but he didn’t know what to say. Y/N seemed lost, or rather rankled somehow. She looked deeply affected, a little agitated but also unsure. He fervently hoped that it wasn’t because she regretted hugging him.

In the lift, too- which was miraculously still working- she didn’t strike up a conversation. However, Dean did catch her stealing looks at him from the corner of her eyes. He watched as she unlocked the front door and stepped inside without a backward glance.

She was almost to her room, when Dean called, “Y/N!”

She turned, not quite looking at him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t you wanna know what Mia told me? I made a promise that I’d tell you what it was once I got the pictures,” His heart was pounding against his chest and his throat was suddenly dry.

Fuck. Was he really going to do this? Tell her how he felt?

She stared at him, less distracted than before.

He cautiously walked towards her, one step at a time. Her eyes went wider with every step, their beautiful color becoming more evident now. The tiara in her hair was almost coming off. It had skewed itself when she had thrown herself against his chest on the rock. He was close enough to touch her now.

Slowly, making his intentions perfectly clearly, Dean pushed it back into her, then let his fingers catch the loose curls that had escaped the knot. He wound it back carefully behind her ear. Y/N’s breath hitched, her eyes flickered to his lips. He let his hand slide further down so the back of his fingers trailed down the side of her cheek. Y/N didn’t budge. Her hand did not stop his, not even when his fingertip traced the shape of her lips. How he had dreamt of being able to do just that.

His other hand slid down her arm and found her lower back.

“She asked me to tell you how I really feel,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning across her face.

Y/N closed her eyes, gravitating towards him, responding to his touch.

“And I have to tell you… I-I can’t keep it in any longer. I- ”

He caught a whiff of her scent and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in. His action threw them both off balance and he ended up pushing her against the side of the door, lips merely an inch away from hers.

His hand landed on the handle of her door and in an effort to regain his balance, his fingers slipped.

*Click*

The door unlocked and Y/N’s eyes snapped open.

She turned in the circle of his arms and pulled the door shut.

He stepped back, completely letting go of her. When she turned back, all blood had drained from her face.

“Dean-” She reached out, scared and desperate, but he stepped farther back.

This is what it all boiled down too. She couldn’t trust him. He had opened his heart out to her today, told her things that he hadn’t ever uttered before, and she still couldn’t fucking trust him.

“I have to get out of here,” Dean said, almost gasping. He grabbed his jacket, car keys and was out before she could follow.

“Dea-”

He slammed the door behind him as hard he could.

_I have trouble trusting people…_

She had warned him, hadn’t she? But even after all this time? Dean had done everything he could to get her to see that he was trying his best. In the past few weeks and especially after what she had told him today, Dean had started to believe that she believed in him. Hell, he had deluded himself into thinking that she might even have feelings for him. It all came crashing down now. What was even the point of hoping for love, when he couldn’t even gain her trust?

He was still an outsider, just like he had been on the day the apartment was flooded. He hadn’t been allowed in her room then. He wasn’t allowed now.

Dean jammed the keys into the car, and revved the engine, whirring the car onto the road. He accelerated as fast as he could driving away from the place he had learned to call home. But was it really even home when he wasn’t welcome into a part of it, more than that, when he wasn’t welcome into the heart of the person who lived in it? Maybe, maybe if he could drive fast enough, he might be able to leave some some of the excruciating pain he felt behind.


	14. Chapter 14

“You had one job, man!” Cas complained. “How hard can it be? For crying out loud, you live with her.”

Dean did not look up from his book. “I live in the room next to hers, not _with_ her.” Hadn’t she pointed it out painfully the other day?

“You just had to ask her if we could use the photo. This way, we’ll miss the deadline. We need to be done with it before the Halloween Party.”

Dean sighed, still not looking up. “Just use another picture. There are plenty of those without her blocking the actual view.”

“She isn’t blocking the view. She is framing it,” Cas argued. “You said it yourself. Besides, we were gonna use that picture anyway, you suggested that we asked her first. You can’t even make out it’s her… it’s just the silhouette.”

Cas was right in a way, but Dean knew it wasn’t right to use the picture without her permission. A few days ago he might have even agreed to use it, thinking that he knew Y/N enough to guess that she wouldn’t mind. But now, he wasn’t sure if he knew her at all.

Cas sighed. “I know you guys work a weird schedule, but how hard is it to catch her for a couple seconds and just ask her?”

Very hard, Dean wanted to tell him. He had been avoiding Y/N at all costs. Making sure that there was no way he ever met her. The first couple days, he had bunked in the tiny office Bobby had given him. After that, he slept with his bedroom locked, music blaring loudly enough to block out any knocking sound on the door.

For all he knew, Y/N might have not tried to talk to him at all. He never heard knocks, never saw her. In fact, he might have believed that Y/N had gone back to her old self, like she didn’t care about him at all, if it hadn’t been for the tiara he had found on the kitchen counter on Wednesday evening. The note beneath it had said- _“I’m sorry for everything. For everything.”_

What did it even mean?

Dean was past giving it anymore thought. He would rather shut himself out than think about letting her in once more. The longer he went without seeing her, the more ashamed he felt about just how much he had shared with her. It had already been five days now.

Despite everything, Dean couldn’t help but wonder if it had meant nothing to her. All those hugs, the touches, the smiles… had it really not affected her at all? Here he was drowning in each of those memories, struggling to break to the surface, so he could somehow escape the pain of rejection. The memory of her smile, the way her eyes twinkled and how her body felt pressed against his, was dragging him into a bottomless pit. To say he was in agony was an understatement.

“Dean?” Cas called, worried now. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah…” He wiped a hand over his face. “Keep that picture on hold. Do we have everything else?”

Cas didn’t look convinced, but he answered Dean anyway. “We have your pictures from the fair, from the quadrangle. You said you’ll have the pictures from the beach ready by tomorrow, and Danielle’s covered most of the local hangout spots. That just leaves two more I think.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with,” Dean said dismissively, looking back into the book. He didn’t want Cas to elaborate further on the beach pictures. Dean had been dreading getting to it.

“I’ll see you then?” Cas sounded unsure.

Dean gave him the best smile he could manage. “Yeah.”

“Hey, Superman!” The annoying voice was extremely pleased.

Dean closed his eyes. Why, why was it that when he wasn’t in the mood for crap like this that it got dumped on him?

“What’s up with all the hard work?” Nick asked, lips curved in a sarcastic smile.

“Some of us actually do it because we like it,” Dean said, shutting his book, and starting to pack up. Having any sort of conversation with Nick Mc-doucheface wasn’t going to improve his disposition.

Nick put his hand forward, effectively blocking his way. “Hey, what’s the hurry? Still have to ship all your assignments to your Goth girlfriend?”

Dean stopped in his tracks.

“Don’t pay attention to him, Dean,” Cas warned.

But Dean turned around still. “I can get all my work done by myself.”

“Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep better at night?” Nick retorted, then changed track. “Actually, it’s not your fault. I’m sure the girl is tired of all the easy money. A workout for her two brain cells might be a good idea.”

The books, bag, all of it dropped from Dean’s hands, his fists balled.

“Don’t you dare say a word against her,” Dean glared, and Nick backed off a little, visibly offbeat.

“She works hard,” Dean continued, voice low, dangerous. “Harder than an asshat like you could ever understand.”

Dean was mad at Y/N, hurt and angry, but no one, not a damn person in the whole world had the right to say anything bad about her. Whatever the issue was between them, Y/N was without doubt a good person. She was smart, compassionate and so hardworking. Dean wasn’t going to hear one word against her.

He raised his fist, ready to hand it to Nick, but, abruptly Nick changed his stance. The fear evaporated from his face and the smirk returned.

“You think you know her very well, don’t you?” He sneered. “Poor little girl works so hard,” Nick mimicked. “Well think again, Winchester. Is your girl really telling you everything?”

Suddenly, Dean lost his footing. Nick had hit right where it hurt.

Nick scoffed. “It’s what I thought.”

He turned back and walked towards the classes, leaving Dean stumped.

“Don’t listen to that jerk,” Cas grunted, placing a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He had completely misunderstood Dean’s silence.

Dean didn’t say much for the rest of the day, in fact his jaw was clenched even when he was fixing the motorbike in Bobby’s garage.

“Something the matter with you, boy?” Bobby leaned in from the other side. Dean could hear his knee creak.

“Nothing, why do you ask?” His words were in a stark contrast to his curt tone.

Bobby grunted. “You’ve been crashing here for almost all of this week. Money issues?”

Dean sighed. “It’s not that, Bobby. It’s- ”

“- the girl,” Bobby completed, leaving Dean baffled.

“Yeah. How did you know?”

Bobby chuckled. “You’ve got that look.”

Dean dropped the rag and fell back, letting himself rest. “You might want to straighten up or you’ll bust a hip.”

“Don’t change the damn topic,” Bobby said, but he stood up nevertheless. “Knock yourself out all you want in my backyard, but you can’t keep hiding out here and run away from things that matter.”

“You don’t understand,” Dean insisted, petulant. “This one is on Y/N. She has half a mile thick walls all around her. I don’t know what to do.” His hands were in his hair now, voice raised in frustration.

“Wait a second- When you say , Y/N… Do you mean Y/N Y/L/N?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah. You know her?”

Bobby cleared his throat. “Yeah, she worked at my wife’s diner…. and went around with my kid.”

“Wait… You’re married to Ellen?” The things he didn’t know!

“Don’t sound so surprised, boy,” Bobby made a face.

Dean shook his head quickly, “No… I mean, then you know her. You know what is up with her.”

“It’s your thing to find out, Dean,” Bobby said gravely, all traces of humor gone. “I’ll give you this, that it hasn’t been easy for that girl. Hell, I’ve never seen another try so hard to live or try to do good.”

“I just don’t know why she doesn’t trust me!” The words were out before he had thought them through. The crux of all his pain.

“Don’t make this about yourself,” Bobby raised an eyebrow. “How long have you known her? A couple of months? Knowing her for 7 years couldn’t make her own blood mother love her. What makes you think she’ll believe yours in a few short weeks?”

* * *

Try as he might, Dean couldn’t get Bobby’s words out of his head. Bobby definitely knew what Y/N was hiding, or what was in her room and he still liked her for the person that she was, so it wasn’t anything necessarily bad. So why was she hiding it from _him?_

Even though every muscle in his body ached to go home to Y/N, give her at least a chance to explain, he didn’t. Mostly because Dean was uncertain. What if she didn’t want to explain anything to him anymore? What if in the past week she thought he had given up on her, and now she was giving up on him?

Besides, how to even start a conversation like that?- “Hey, Y/N! Remember that time I tried to kiss you and accidentally ended up opening the door to your room? And you pushed me away cause you don’t trust me? Sooooo… what was all that about, huh?”

There was no way he could talk to her without giving away how hopelessly he loved her. Wasn’t that the cause of his pain, anyway? The questions plagued Dean well into the evening and by the time he reached the apartment Y/N was gone.

He didn’t get much sleep that night. When he did fall asleep, a stupid dream kept waking him up. He was driving the Impala on a narrow bridge, maybe even narrower that the width of the car itself and he didn’t know how to drive. All he was left to do was flail desperately, pushing at levers hoping that the car didn’t fall off the edge of the bridge till he reached the land. But the land never came and he kept struggling with the wheel.

At one point he realized that the bridge was never gonna end so to end the misery he steered the car off the bridge but it wouldn’t fall off either. So he was left to struggle on that infinite bridge driving a car that should feel like home but didn’t, not even knowing how to drive, with no way to escape or end the ordeal.

When the alarm rang at 8:30, he woke up in a cold sweat, heart racing a mile per minute. By the time he left for college, Y/N hadn’t been back. The red door was still locked. He wondered if it was too late to even try to make things right now.

Dean couldn’t concentrate on a word that was being spoken in the lectures. By lunch time, he had ducked out of classes all together and sought refuge in the dark room of the photo studio, where he could hide out from those people. Meticulously, he developed the roll, dipping the photo paper in the solution and clipping it the lines for exposure. The beach looked stunning in the pictures. The two far off figures of the girls were not more that tiny stick figures in the print, but even then the love was still there, or maybe it was Dean’s yearning making him see it. He wondered if they had ever had a lover’s spat like this where they went days on end without talking to each other. But what he and Y/N had wasn’t a lover’s spat, he realized wryly, because they weren’t lovers. 

Dean slid back against the side table, taking a look at the rest of the pictures. Y/N looked as beautiful as ever, smiling and awed. As he progressed, he found the last of the lot. Pictures of him that _she_ had clicked.

Dean was surprised by what he saw.

He was obviously rolling his eyes in the first picture, but there was color in his cheeks, and his lips were threatening to spill into a smile. Though his hands were defensively crossed over his chest, his body was titled towards her. The next image was him staring at the camera with a fake threatening glare. The next one had him bent over laughing, finally giving in to that laugh. It was followed by a couple more shots of him trying to gain control over himself. The last picture was the one that shocked him the most.

In it, it was clear beyond doubt that he was in love with the person behind the camera. His eyes shone with warmth and admiration. No wonder Mia saw right through him. _He_ could see right through him. It was hopeless and it was right _there_ in his smile, eyes, body language, just everything. Maybe Y/N had known it all along, too.

There was also one other thing- In all those pictures, Dean looked happy, utterly content. That expression was as appealing on his face as rare.

That made the decision for him. Y/N had done this. She had bought out this happiness and he wasn’t going to let that without putting up the damnest fight he ever had. He was going to find her and confront her about it, at least, ask her what the matter was. He couldn’t lose her now, not when he had gotten _this_ close.

“Why’re you hiding out here?” Cas said from beside him, effectively making Dean jump and crash into the side table.

“Jesus!” He cursed under his breath. “Are you trying to kill me or something?”

Cas was quick to apologize. In the dark it was hard to see his expression, but Dean was positive from the sound of his voice that he was alarmed. Lately, Dean had been so moody that Cas was usually walking on eggshells. It made Dean feel regretful. He purposely modulated his voice to sound casual.

“That’s alright. I was developing the roll for the beach pictures.”

Cas walked ahead and careful inspected all photos.

“Man, these are awesome!”

Dean didn’t immediately say anything to the compliment. Cas turned around to face his friends.

“I-I can’t take all the credit for that. Y/N took me to that place.”

“So I can see, ” Cas said lightly, gesturing towards the row of pictures from where Y/N was smiling down at both of them.

“Look, Dean.” Cas put an hand on his shoulder. Again, Dean could feel Cas’ eyes boring into his. “I can see that you’re a little out of it, and I can also guess the reason behind that. But she’s a good one and it’s not hard to see that she cares for you.”

Dean cleared his throat and busied himself with assembling the camera, and Cas moved to help him with the rest, neither of them knowing what else to say.

“By the way, we’re going to one more place to wrap up this project, then we’re done,” Cas said conversationally as they stepped out of the studio.

“I need to go back early today.” He had to find Y/N today and if he got caught up with this, he was sure to miss her. “Can’t Danielle do it?”

Cas shook his head. “Danielle’s off doing two other shoots, and if we don’t get this done today, we won’t meet the Halloween deadline.”

Dean sighed. He couldn’t stand Cas up. Not now when both his friend and the magazine needed him so much. Those guys had taken him in when he felt like an outcast here. They had made the University feel like home. All those people were there to hurl abuses at Zach, to get him coffee on late nights and provide him with an appreciation and a sense of validation that he had never known before. He couldn’t ditch them in the time of need. His emotions and the mess in his life can wait another day.

“Alright, let’s’ make a move then.”

It was pretty late by the time they left the campus, on Cas’ rickety scooter again, Dean’s fears growing stronger with every second that the damn thing was going to fall apart at every possible ditch. The darkening sky kept reminding him of the time on the beach cliff. The streets were all lined with Halloween decorations- Scary ghouls, skeletons, ghosts made up of moth-eaten once white sheets. The awnings were hung with fake spider webs and laughter could be heard from a nook and cranny now and then.

Dean smiled, for the first time in what felt like weeks even though it was mere days. It was hard not to. The air was crisp, the slight chill welcoming now that it was infused with the faint smell of pumpkins and spices. The road was lined with yellow, orange and brown leaves, so were the trees. It wasn’t the fall though that made him smile, it was finally letting go of all the anger.

“Where are we going anyway?” Dean asked, raising his voice against the wind.

Cas didn’t answer and Dean wondered if had missed his words, so he asked again. Cas’ answer was clipped. “You’ll see when we get there.”

Weird.

Dean didn’t give it much thought. It was probably a local hangout anyway.

“Cas! Stop!” He said suddenly, making his friend hit the brakes urgently, almost flinging them both off the old bike.

“What the actual hell?” Cas asked, annoyed. He was massaging his knee which he had managed to hit against the side. “What happened?”

Dean was apologetic. “I just saw something in the shop that I want.”

Cas looked at the overly decorated gift shop and scowled. They had really gone to town with the decorations, putting up every last Halloween prop they could muster.

“You hold on, I’ll be back in a minute,” Dean said, hopping down from the bike.

Few minutes later he was back with a package wrapped in a horrid purple color paper.

“What’s in it?” Cas sounded curious.

“A gift,” Dean said shortly. He didn’t want to elaborate. Cas caught the hint.

They rode on for another 10 minutes till he abruptly stopped the bike once more, throwing Dean into him.

“Dammit, Cas! You need to stop doing tha-… Where the _hell_ are we?”

Dean had gotten down without really paying attention to what he was doing, eyes still fixed on the large board with sparkling golden letters. Behind him, Cas parked the bike and got on to the curb next to Dean.

“It’s the ’ _Elixir’_ ” Cas commented, voice purportedly casual.

“Yeah, Cas. I can read,” Dean mumbled, eyes wide. “It’s a strip-club. Why have you brought me to a strip club?”

Cas gave him a matter-of-fact look. “Well, it is a popular hangout place.”

“You might have thought to mention that before we left?”

Cas looked slightly ashamed. “There’s two reasons for that. One, Meg was around. Even though this is for work, I couldn’t very well mention strip clubs, especially after that last fight over puke in her shoes-”

“Puke in her shoes?”

“Story for another time,” Cas said, dismissive. “And second reason is… Well, Nick reminded us of this.”

Dean was appalled. “Asshole Nick? Since when are we listening to that douchenozzle?”

Cas put his hands up. “Just hear me out, okay. He stuck it to me saying that we couldn’t even remember about the most popular hangout. He said something about how you were too much of a wimp to keep it in your pants in a charged atmosphere like that. I couldn’t very well listen to him prattle about you like that! What best way to put him down other than having _you_ click the perfect pictures?”

Dean felt uneasy. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, like there was something going on here that he wasn’t able to see.

Why would Nick do something like this? If he really wanted to fuck them over, he could have just not reminded Cas about this place at all. Why taunt him and then clue him in? More than that, why specifically mention him, Dean?

Something wasn’t quite adding up.

“I don’t think I should go in there,” Dean said, backing off.

“What? You can’t bail on me.”

Dean shook his head. “Something’s not right. I can feel it. Why couldn’t Danielle do this?”

“I told you she was busy, didn’t I?”

His first thought was Y/N. Maybe Nick had staged this to throw Dean under the bus. Maybe he thought that it would piss Y/N off when she found out that Dean had been to a strip club taking close-ups of the girls. He wasn’t sure how she would react, though. Would she really be angry with him? Dean didn’t want that… not when he was planning to sort things out. The purple package in his hand started feeling heavier than it was. He quickly stowed it in his bag.

But if Y/N was really angry about him visiting a strip club, that meant it bothered her to see him clicking other girls. Which could only mean one thing- that she had feelings for him. Dean was torn about what he wanted.

“What’re you thinking about?” Cas tugged at his harm. “C'mon, the main show is starting.”

“Main show?”

“They have this exotic dancer who opens and ends the night,” Cas explained quickly. “Goes by the name ‘Celestia.”

“Celestia?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Cas said. “I’ve heard everyone comes out in droves when she performs. She’s kept this place running single-handedly sometimes.”

Dean had to admit that he was curious now. “She’s a stripper?”

Cas pursed his lips. “I don’t think so, but I’ve never been here myself. Let’s just go in and be out soon.”

Dean couldn’t agree more. He still couldn’t shake off the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but he followed Cas in nevertheless.

Inside, it was darker and quieter than he had expected. Everyone was gathered around one aisle of the stage that cut right to the centre of the space, a gleaming silver rod extending from the base and disappearing into the darkness at the top.

Dean’s eyes roved around to the dimly lit bar, the glasses tinkering as the bartender cleaned the almost empty table. Everyone else was just waiting, whispering quietly in anticipation.

He had been to strip clubs before, but none of them like this. All other side aisles were empty. There were no girls there. Whatever this Celestia was, she was sure as hell the goddamned attraction of this place for every other dancer to back off until she was done.

A man dressed in outrageously magenta clothes came on to the central aisle from behind a velvety red curtain. He had a cheesy manner and oily hair. Didn’t exactly seem creepy, but Dean wouldn’t willingly befriend him on an ordinary day.

Cas nudged him, whispering not too softly. “What’re you waiting for. Click!”

Dean put the camera to his eye, adjusting the shutter speed to accommodate the darkness. The cheesy man exited the stage quickly.

A shimmering leg broke the smooth velvety curtain, and then a girl appeared, too gracefully.

She was wearing a flimsy crimson number, with a fitted low cut bustier and glittering frill that ended even before it reached mid thigh. Her legs were covered in a sheer material tights with tiny crystals sporadically woven into it that ended into blood red, 5 inch pumps. In fact her whole attire was embedded with tiny crystals and stars. _Celestia_. Dean got why they called her that. He zoomed in close to capture the way the light reflected off the stones on her frilly frock. Iridescent. 

Her hair was gelled into an elegant updo at the top of her head and a beautiful golden design had been drawn on the side of her face. It all perfectly complemented the magnificent color of her eyes.

Dean’s camera dropped, hanging limply around his neck.

Celestia took a deep bow and touched the pole, wrapping one long leg along the axel, then completely let go. It was as if the pole was a part of her body now. The music flared and the whistles from the crowd rang. Bills showered all around her as she gloriously spun her body around the pole, stretching her limbs and body to the rhythm of the music. It was nothing like anything Dean had seen before. It wasn’t dance, it was reverence, a prayer, a divine act that should never have been witnessed at all outside of heaven.

She was a nymph, a creature from another celestial world. Celestia.

“What are you looking at,” Cas prodded again, “Get a couple good shots of her.”

Dean did not move, he did not lift his camera. He already had plenty of good shots of her. His bag on the floor, next to his foot was full of her pictures. What more was left to click?

An image of Y/N leaning over the compartment of the Ferris Wheel, telling him that she had a good balance, came unfettered to his mind. He was laughing, her eyes glowing.

It was all right there… it had been there all along. How she always seemed to be exercising, sweating. She was flexible enough to school everyone in the Limbo, her work hours, her huge satchel, the blaring pop music… even her smooth palms. She was an exotic dancer.

She danced unaware of him and everyone else. As expressive and graceful as her body was, her eyes were oddly blank, they didn’t meet anyone’s. Dean’s fists balled, a flood of emotions surfacing within him like an avalanche, but he still could not take his eyes off of her. He was enthralled, absolutely enchanted.

She made the mistake though. While performing a particularly low dip, her eyes met with his. The astounding Y/E/C into his wide jade. She straightened, feeling flooding into those carefully dead eyes. Shock but also fear.

A second passed and she did not move, eyes not leaving his, becoming more pained with every passing moment. Another second passed and she stood still.

Someone cleared their throat from the side and it seemed like she was rudely awakened. She grabbed the pole and did another twirl, then another, each time her eyes meeting Dean’s more agitated than before. She stuck her foot out, hurriedly going through the rest of the routine without looking up until the very end. When she finished in a huge applaud, finally looking up, Dean wasn’t there. The only other person she recognized was Cas, who stared point blank, too shocked to register any other expression.

She quickly bowed and ran back inside, almost crashing into her huge gilded mirror.

“Y/N!” One of the girls called.

“Not now, Suzie.” She kicked off her shoes, pulling on the flats then grabbed her shirt and wiped off the glitter from her face. Pulled on the black satin robe and the beanie over her styled hair.

“Aren’t you coming out for the bow?” Someone else asked, but Y/N didn’t reply. Her vision was blurring and hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she ran back out.

With the other girls lining up on the respective stages after the opening act, the crowd dispersed into smaller cluster. No one paid attention to the small figure in black, hurtling through them.

She found Cas still standing next to the centre aisle.

“Cas!” Y/N rasped, voice shaking worse than her hands. “Where’s- Where’s Dean?”

“Y/N!” Cas exclaimed. “Are you alright? You’re trembling.”

It was a tribute to how good a person he was that despite his shock, and what he had just witnessed, the first thing Cas wanted to know was if she was okay. Y/N should have been grateful, but through the fear and breathlessness, she couldn’t manage anything else except, “Dean? Where’s he?”

“He just left.”

“Where’d he go?” Y/N asked, doubling over, almost sobbing now.

“I- I don’t know.” Cas said, voice panicked, but also sorry. “He didn’t even take his stuff,” he pointed.

Y/N’s eyes followed to the floor, where a bag was left lying down. He had left in a hurry, accidentally knocking it over. All the contents had come scrambling out. A couple dozen pictures… all of hers, laughing, teasing, blushing. His books had spilled out along with a purple package that had split open. Inside were a pair of socks with tiny gun and knife prints. A black beanie with small white skulls sprinkled all over it.

She fell to the ground gathering all the things and hurriedly stuffing them inside the bag. She slung it across her torso and dashed out, not even waiting to listen to Cas’ question asking her where she was going.

Again, no one paid attention to the black figure, not in the glittering, glamorous bar. No one paid attention to the tiny figure that broke down the moment she stepped out of the club.


	15. Chapter 15

It was Prussian blue today. All of it. Deep, dark Prussian blue. Some might call it black, but a random trivia stuck in the back of his head reminded Dean that the sky was never truly black. It was the eyes that were incapable of deciphering the true color. There was light there, just too far away for his eyes to see, but there was always light. With its speed, it just hadn’t reached him yet.

Dean also knew that screwing his eyes into tiny slits wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t their fault that they were flawed. He would just have to wait for the morning to be able to see the sky clearly again.

It was unfair though. Why was he always the one waiting? Waiting for sky to lighten up at its own pace, waiting for her to trust him when _she_ wanted to. Just eternal waiting.

But, at least, there was a certainty in waiting for the morning. If he stayed still, after a few hours, the sky was sure to go from black to purple to orange and then to a clear crystal blue. There was no such certainty with Y/N.

The sand dug into his bare feet, sticking to his skin as he sat there, staring at the endless blank that was the sea, almost invisible if it hadn’t been the froth that came with the waves.

She wanted to be like the sea.

He had no choice but to be the sand.

It was quiet in this part of the beach and dark, too. There was no one around for quite a distance. Dean drew comfort from the silence that was only broken by the rhythmic waves.

Soft padding drew his attention, but he did not look away from the ocean. However, his breath caught in his throat. He felt something light graze his head, then felt her sliding down against his back.

Dean gulped.

She sank down into the sand with her back touching to his, facing away from the sea.

Dean waited with baited breath for her to say something. Anything; but nothing came.

He didn’t know what he expected, but an apology never came.

Finally, he spoke. “We were friends, right?”

His voice sounded strange. It was too even, almost flat, which was in direct contrast to the uproar of emotions he felt inside.

She still said nothing. If it weren’t for the heat emanating from her body and into Dean’s own skin, he would have concluded that her presence was a hallucination.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

“It wasn’t you, Dean,” she said quietly, voice diminished. “How could it have been you?”

“Then why?”

Dean expected an answer, a clear cut rebuttal or a fitting reason. One of the two, so, her words came as a surprise.

“Do you remember Mia’s recital, Dean?” She asked.

He wanted to ask what that had anything to do with this, but he answered her question. “Yeah.”

“Remember Odette? How she would be a swan all day long, and truly herself only at night?”

“She was cursed,” he reminded her.

Her voice was suppressed when she answered. “She was also helpless. You think the prince would have believed her story if he hadn’t seen her transform with his own two eyes? You think he wouldn’t have just accused her of being a random, characterless chick who roamed in the forests at night?”

“Well, Odette would never know that, would she? Since she really didn’t know the Prince’s point of view. Never really saw the way he looked at her.”

A sigh.

“He would have killed that swan, Dean. He would have hunted her, thinking she was just a bird and nothing more. He didn’t, because he saw that she could turn into that damsel. And then, he just fell in love with the girl, not the swan. That’s why he professed his love to a girl who was impersonating Odette, not even looking at the swan who was banging against the window. Because he just fell in love with one aspect of Odette… not all of her.”

Dean opened his mouth to cut her off, but she cut him instead.

“Even then, what did it cost the Prince?” She questioned. “He had to give up his life to be with her. Was she even worth it?”

“That was his choice to make,” he said firmly. “Besides, I’m not the Prince.”

“And I’m no Odette… but is it hard to see why she might have wanted to keep her secret to herself?”

“Why, Y/N?” Dean asked again. “Just why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was scared,” she admitted. “I was scared that my well planned out life would topple over like a house of cards in a gust of wind. I love dancing. Ever since I set foot in Miss Kathy’s dance class in Tampa, it’s what’s given me a will to live… A purpose. It’s something I know I am good at. In all the shit-storm, learning to dance was my one dream come true.”

Dean tightened his arms around his knees. “Did you think I wouldn’t let you go after your dreams?” Had she not known him at all?

Her shoulders stiffened against his and she seemed to shake her head. “For as long as I’ve been in this city, I’ve only had this one dream. To buy that apartment, renovate the basement into a dancing studio and open my own dance class. Where I could teach little girls who wanted to learn, who wanted fly. I knew what I wanted and I was willing to work hard to make sure my dream came true. It was everything to me.”

“So what happened?”

A nervous pause.

“You happened, Dean Winchester,” she mumbled, quiet. “Something… someone else became more important. I wasn’t afraid of losing my dream anymore, I was afraid of losing the one thing I wanted more than my dream- you. And it scared the hell out of me.”

Her voice became huskier than usual. “Suddenly, I wasn’t lifting the boxes alone. You were there, painting the walls of the studio, fixing the rods in all my dreams. You were always there, laughing and teasing and being _you_. And then I was scared that I wouldn’t want that dream if you weren’t in it. I- I was just so… scared.”

A sob left her lips and Dean turned. She was huddled just like him- legs propped up, bent at the knee with arms wrapping around them, except, she was hunched over and there were tears running down both her cheeks. Her eyes were puffy and the tip of her nose was shiny. It left him aghast.

He had never seen her cry. He had never even imagined her like this. So vulnerable… so _helpless_.

He could do this to her.

Thoughtlessly, he pulled her against his chest, and another sob ripped free of her. All too soon, she was sobbing incessantly against him, and he could _feel_ it. Feel days of stress, tension and worry with every heave, every jerk. The mere effort of trying to control the crying was making her entire body shake violently. It was like she couldn’t control it anymore, didn’t know _how_ to pull herself together.

With a stab in his gut, he realized that maybe she had never needed to pull herself together because she had never allowed herself to fall apart. She simply didn’t know how to stop.

The corners of his own eyes started to sting, and gently, he pulled her into his lap, pushing the stray hair that had escaped the beanie out of her eyes.

“Shhh… it’s okay,” he murmured. It only made her cry harder, the shivering now uncontrollable. With some difficulty, Dean shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it over her shoulders. She was wearing a black satin robe that split high at her thigh, her leg breaking free of it completely. Underneath, he could see the hem of her skimpy dance costume.

He kept whispering a steady stream of incoherent reassurances that he hoped were enough to calm her some, all the while running his hand over her sides, back and forth… back and forth… back and forth… “Just… hush….”

It took a while… several endless or rather timeless moments, but eventually, her breathing became somewhat even, and her heaving jerks reduced. He had lapsed into a silence, listening to the unique harmony of the water, letting it fill him with calm.

Y/N wasn’t moving in his arms. In fact, she hadn’t moved in a while and Dean assumed that maybe the crying had exhausted her enough to fall asleep.

Until her low voice sounded. “Dean? Are you mad? I’m sorry.”

“No, Y/N,” he said, pulling her slightly closer. He wasn’t sure she was ready to move yet. “I’m not mad, of course not. You’re a freaking find. You’re mesmerizing and just so… talented.”

It was an understatement. But there was no word in the English vocabulary that would come close to describing just how magnificent she was. No such superlative had been invented yet.

“There… there was this guy who found out who I was outside of the club. He found out that I was Y/N and not just Celestia… and he started following me around… broke into the house, too.”

“Shit.” Dean remembered the day when she had locked the house from inside and it had cost him Zach’s imposition. That was why.

“And then… this other guy I had met at the University years ago… He found out that I worked in a strip club and then… then…”

“Those guys were idiots!” Dean’s blood was boiling. Y/N was unique, typecasting her into just one persona was such an ignorant mistake. Those men didn’t deserve her.

“So you’re not ashamed… of what I do?” Again, her voice was small, still uncertain.

This time Dean pushed her back slightly and lowered himself a little so he could look into her eyes. She was still scared. That wouldn’t do.

“Y/N,” he said firmly. “You’re a genius. It would be a shame to let all that talent go to waste if you chose to not perform. You’re splendid and the world needs to see that. You don’t belong in a tiny club, you belong on the stage. But, if that’s what you want to do, then that’s that. I’ll be there to cook the Ramen and fix the leaks, and I’ll be doing that with a thousand watt smile on my face because I’m _proud_ of the person that you are.”

He paused, collecting his thoughts… finally saying it out loud to her. “I didn’t fall for that exotic dancer, Y/N. I didn’t fall for the intelligent girl, the genius that you are, either. I fell in love with my somewhat eccentric, beanie-wearing, psychopath of a roommate. I fell in love with you.” Funny, how his heart was still beating wildly.

Her eyes widened, and so many emotions flashed through them- shock, pain, recognition, hope and then finally settled on something that was more raw… more primal. Her eyes began to swim with tears again.

Dean put his palm against her cheek, reveling in the softness of her skin. “I’m a little disappointed, though.”

Her brow furrowed.

“I really thought we were gonna make a torture chamber out of the basement,” he winked. “I had even thought of the first person I wanted to put in there.” Nick’s stupid face came to Dean’s mind and he pushed it away.

She smacked his chest, but then laughed despite herself. It was a throaty chuckle.

“Well… there’s still the attic.”

He couldn’t believe the girl. She had just been through so much and still found it in her to return the sass. However, Dean’s stomach was still in knots… He had confessed, but she hadn’t explicitly said it back. The way she was looking at him though… Dean didn’t want her to lose herself in the moment and do something that she would regret later… when they weren’t quite wrapped around each other like that.

Dean cleared his throat, slowly disentangling himself, then helped Y/N to her feet. If she usually wore mismatched clothes, she had outdone herself this time with the black, frilly and silky robe, pink flat and brown beanie. His bag that he had left at the Elixir was hanging limply from her side. She looked a cross between a carnival game referee and a recovering hipster. Dean fell in love a little more.

“C'mon,” he put an arm around her, tucking her under her shoulder while she wrapped one around his waist. The tingle that ran up his spine at her touch hadn’t changed at all he noted wryly.

They walked the short distance back, and Dean purposely took the stairs, not wanting to risk the closeness that the lift necessitated.

In fact, he was so nervous that his hands shook as he tried to put the key in the keyhole.

How was he going to sleep tonight knowing that she was right there… a few steps away. He could hold her, pull her against him as he slept.

The clicking of the lock shook him out of that thought.

Y/N trailed behind him as they reached the middle.

“C'mere,” Dean said, catching hold of both her hands and pulling her close. “You don’t have to say it back, but now that I’ve said it once, I can’t seem to be able to stop saying it.”

A nervous laugh.

“I love you, Y/N.”

He then closed the little distance between them and kissed her brow, lingering just a longer than was necessary, then stepped back, completely letting go of her.

“If you uhh… If you need anything at all… you know where to find me,” he said scratching the back of his neck.

“Dean!” She called as he turned. Her warm, smooth hand found his fingers and yanked him back. “Come, I want to show you something.”

She led him towards the red door which appeared to become bigger and bigger with every step forward. At the last second, she looked up to meet his eyes. Complete and utter trust in them… not even the hint of a doubt.

She turned the handle and pushed the door.

The creaking echoed in Dean’s ears before Y/N stepped in and flicked the lights on.

The room was basic, much larger than his, but painted in similar pastel shades. Baby blue and Beige. It was as sparsely furnished as possible; completely functional. There was a small, single bed pushed against one side and next to a folding table and a chair were propped against the corner. A stereo was positioned next to it on the extending window sill.

A rectangular shelf cum wardrobe took up little part of the floor next to what Dean assumed was the bathroom door. The part of the mahogany shelf that had glass panes was stuffed with books. Thick, small, novels, diaries… just so many book. What was left of it probably held her clothes. There was a blue travelling bag stashed up on top of the wardrobe.

The floor was covered in a dark maroon, think, fluffy carpet. The room would have been completely ordinary, generic if it had been for the gleaming steel pole that was fixed to the floor right in the centre of the room and stretched up till the ceiling.

This was why.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” she said not meeting his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just don’t trust my luck. Nothing so good just tumbled into my life… nothing except you. Selfishly, I just didn’t want to lose you, because… I love you, too.”

A heartbeat passed.

“Say it again,” Dean pleaded.

“I love you, Romeo.”

That was all it took for Dean to cross the space in two bounds and pull her flush against himself, pushing her into the wall. Y/N looped her hands around his neck and hoisted herself up, crushing her lips into his, kissing him with a passion that could have set the whole room on fire.

“Whoa!” Dean gasped, breaking apart for a second so he could catch his breath. “Aren’t you a surprise?”

She grinned wickedly. “You haven’t seen anything yet, Winchester.” Then abruptly, she pushed him onto the tiny bed.

Dean’s heartbeat quickened, mouth dry with a fresh excitement, but all he could manage was a lame comeback. “Isn’t this bed too small?”

“My roommate has a bigger bed in the next room,” she winked conspiratorially, moving to cover his body with her own. “We could move there, but only if you promise not to tell him.”


	16. Epilogue

“This is a horrible fricking idea!” Dean grumbled, getting out of the car.

Y/N merely smirked, and Dean had to admit that the expression had never looked so alluring on anyone else. “You’re just nervous. This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done.”

Dean adjusted his tie. She looked so happy that he would have done anything to keep her smiling like that. This wasn’t a big deal as it is. He was only nervous because he had never done this before, and also because he was about to walk in with the best girl he knew.

Incidentally, the reason for Y/N’s excitement was same as his nervousness. She had never done this before either.

The building was colored in flashing crimson and purple lights which reflected on Y/N’s face. Dean couldn’t help but be reminded of the fair, when they were stuck in the Ferris wheel. She had looked beautiful then, and she looked beautiful now. The black wig that she was sporting suited her perfectly, so did the dark lipstick. She looked something else.

Just before they could enter the hall, Dean caught hold of her hand and pulled her back.

“Have I told you that you look absolutely stunning?”

Y/N looked down, smiling shyly. It would still take him time to get used to her reacting like that instead of glare down at him like she was about to pull out a butcher’s knife.

“You don’t look bad yourself, Romeo!”

“Are you kidding me?” Dean complained, touching his slick black hair. “I look like a clown.”

“No you don’t,” she said, running her hand over the lapels of his coat, fussing over him. “You look hot.” She licked her lips. “I’d kiss you, but I don’t wanna ruin the look with my lipstick.”

“Screw the look,” Dean said, reaching out for the small of her back and pulling her close. “I don’t give a damn about the look.”

He leaned in, but she put a finger to his lips. “If you kiss me now, we’d have to go right back home to finish what we started, and I don’t want to miss tonight. It’s such a big day for you.”

Dean could feel the heat rising to his cheeks. She was so proud of him.

It wasn’t a big deal. They were launching the paper today, but they all did it every month. For him, though, this was the first time. They had loved his pictures so much that a couple of them were being used in tonight’s Halloween party as a backdrop with some Halloweeny stickers. Y/N had been delighted to know about that. It was right after telling her that, that Dean had asked her out to the party.

She had been excited about it from the get go, especially the dressing up part. Dean found it amusing that she was so excited about dressing up even though she did it for a living. That was until he found out what she was planning to dress up as. Honestly, he shouldn’t have expected any less of her. She had somehow convinced him to dress up as Gomez Addams, complete with the temporarily colored black hair. He might have to take a couple of days to wash it off completely, but again, her happiness was so palpable that he didn’t want to take it away. She was ravishing as Morticia.

All things considered, it was still better than her idea of dressing up as Count Dracula and Clementine Barnabet. Dean had to talk her out of it. He loved that she was still wearing the printed socks that he had gifted her. The skull beanie had been a constant up until tonight.

As the day approached though, despite her initial reaction, Y/N seemed to grow a little anxious about it. Not enough to curb her enthusiasm, but definitely enough to not fully enjoy it. They had had fun with putting together the ensembles. For the past week, since their evening on the beach, Dean had woken up at ungodly hours to catch Y/N’s closing act of the night. All eyes in the club hungered for one look at her, but her eyes only searched his, and Dean felt like his chest widened a couple of inches each time.

After each show, he’d wait behind the curtains to welcome her when she came back, not believing that the Nymph was his. The other girls were happy for Y/N. They were all around her age, but she had mentored almost all of them. It made him clearly see her for who she was- a giver. She did so much for the girls who could very well end up being her own competition, and she did so much for all those little girls in Mia’s school, too. Seeing her interact, he also realized that she was a natural teacher, she loved to share what she knew, selflessly.

They scourged through the fancy costumes at the _Elixir_ , trying to try out funny hats and coats, entertaining the girls who had been exhausted after entertaining people all night long. Y/N’s eyes shined when she saw him accepting her life and everyone in it so easily. She kissed him harder that morning in the car.

They did find the perfect costumes for Gomez and Morticia, too, there.

Other girls passing them were dressed as nurses or hot assistants, making the most of the opportunity to wear revealing clothes without it being questioned and more credit to them, but there was something very endearing about Y/N’s childish excitement about dressing up in two full length layers.

“C'mon!” He grinned, pulling her by her arm, but she didn’t move.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?”

Dean huffed. “Now you’re having cold feet about this? After you made me spend 2 hours in the bathroom trying to get the hair right?”

“No… Dean,” she said, voice abruptly serious. “It’s not that, I mean…”

“Hey,” Dean put his hand against her soft cheek. “You alright? You’re not feeling sick, are you? I told you not to overdo the shifts. In fact, you can take it easy now. Anyway you’re quitting the job next month when all your installments for the apartment are paid.”

“Dean. Listen.” She put her hand over his… the one she was already holding. “Do you want to be seen here with me?”

“Y/N!”

She was quick to put up her hand. “Look… I’m not doubting you. You’re like God’s personal blessing who just happened to creepily drop into my apartment, but not everyone is as accepting as you. Someone might recognize me… and I’m used to all sorts of slurs, but you’re not. I don’t want to put you through that.”

Her voice had consistently risen, and her eyes were widening with every said word.

“Shhh… Just stop panicking,” he said, pulling her against his chest. “You’re missing the whole goddamned point here. You think I’d be ashamed if someone said anything about you? Don’t you get it by now that I’m just beyond thrilled to be with a fantastic person like you? The first night when I found you at Elixir, I didn’t leave because I was mad at you, I left because seeing me there was distracting you. I thought you knew that.”

She shook her head. “I do know that, and I know you won’t be ashamed… I thought you’d be more like… angry.”

“If someone called you a bad name?”

She nodded meekly against his silky black lapels.

“We could always make them a customer in our newly furnished torture room,” he shrugged. “Bet that will teach them to talk crap about hard working people.”

She laughed, breaking completely free of the dismal Morticia façade. “You’re crazy.”

“Says you!” He said smiled, pecking her cheek. “That’s very rich, don’t you think?” 

This time she let him take her in.

If it was a rainbow disaster outside, the inside was how the fairy world would look in the scene of an Armageddon. It was insane. Dean didn’t know where to put his eyes. Wasn’t Halloween supposed to be incredibly gloomy? Why was it so colorful?

“Hold me!” Dean said, grabbing Y/N by the shoulders. “I think my retinas are screaming for a savior.”

“Shut up, it’s not that bad,” she admonished. “Besides, bright flashing lights are supposed to make you bold and all that. People dance without stopping to think what they look like.”

“Seems fair.” Dean looked at the centre of the floor where couples were trying to dance along the jazz tune.

“You wanna go out there?” She jerked her neck towards the floor.

“What? No!” Dean said, flustered. “I can’t dance to save my life.”

“It’s not that hard… come, I’ll show you.”

He rolled his eyes. Of course she could.

Y/N pulled him towards the dance floor, but still away from the centre. She guided his hands to her waist and put both of hers on his shoulders. “Now you just sway from one side to another. See? Like this.”

“I’m just gonna step on your dress and pull us both down,” he warned trying to follow her. It wasn’t fair that she was doing it so effortlessly and he was left to struggle.

“OMG, Y/N!” Hannah exclaimed, walking up from behind. “I didn’t know Dean was gonna bring you along! You both look great.”

Hannah was dressed like a Vampire… at least that’s what Dean made out of the fangs and blood crusted lips.

“Cas, Meg!” She called out. “Look, Dean’s here and he bought Y/N along.”

Soon enough Dean’s other two friends were there. Meg was wearing a red and black bodysuit with horns and tail, while Cas was dressed in a white suit with attached feathered wings, a halow perched on top.

“Angel and Demon?” Y/N asked. “That’s very original.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea,” Cas said, pulling her into a half hug. Dean wasn’t really sure Y/N was the hugging type, but Cas just gave the vibe.

“You turned out to be way more badass than we gave you credit for,” Meg grinned, nudging Y/N in the shoulder. “And there we were wondering how you could rock that limbo so hard.”

It was hard to tell in the flashing lights but Y/N seemed to blush.

The DJ changed the song to a more upbeat one Meg pushed Y/N towards Dean, “C'mon, you guys, move it!”

“You wanna move it?” Y/N wiggled her eyebrows, grinding against him. Dean laughed but before he could reply, his eyes fell on Nick who was eyeing them from the sides.

“C'mere!” Dean pulled Y/N tightly against him, one hand sliding down her back to grab her ass, the other fisted in her hair, holding her to him. He brought his lips to her temple, kissing her softly, then deliberately dragged it along her cheek and down to the base of her neck. Sucking a mark exactly where he knew affected her the most. Y/N’s moan was both muted and involuntary.

“Dean!” She giggled. It wasn’t something she did often, but Dean loved the sound. He didn’t stop there…. He let his lips travel along the column of her neck, hands roving all over her back.

Y/N’s fingers gripped his coat tightly, her chest rising and falling against his own. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Nick had disappeared.

“Who are you putting on a show for, Winchester?” She said, reaching up to kiss his lips, not caring about the lipstick anymore apparently.

“No one of importance,” Dean shrugged. “You mind putting on a show?”

“Nope… not at all. I do that for a living.”

Dean didn’t care if he had put Nick in his place, or not. Nick had sure tried to ruin it all for Dean, but ultimately hadn’t it worked in his favor after all. For all he cared, Nick could go screw himself. He had Y/N, there would never be a bigger victory than that.

“So about Thanksgiving,” Y/N said, “I can’t really cook a turkey. I mean we invited all these people, and I can’t cook to save the world.”

“It’s okay, we’ll figure something out,” Dean replied. “There’s like a million cookbooks out there. Besides we can always order, and everyone is getting something or the other. If the turkey sucks, we can eat the mashed potatoes.”

“But counting Mia and the girls, Sam and Jess, Cas, Meg and the couple of girls from the club, there’s like 12 of us. Our apartment isn’t big enough.”

“Y/N. Stop panicking!” They had both stopped dancing by now and were just holding each other’s hands. “We have almost a month to go. By then you’d have signed the papers for the building and we can do it in the basement.”

She still didn’t look convinced.

“Hey,” Dean lowered his face to look into her beautiful eyes. “Even if they don’t like the turkey, the newly minted torture equipment will keep them from saying anything.” He winked.

“Seriously, Dean,” she said, “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how to talk to people… _what_ to talk to people about. I just- this feels so normal and I’ve never had normal before.”

His heart broke for her. She _wanted_ this and yet she was so scared of the unknown.

“You know the girls, Y/N. And Meg and Cas are friends. They like you. You know that!”

She nodded absentmindedly. “What about Sam and his girlfriend?”

Dean scoffed remembering the conversation he’d had with his brother. “Sam thinks you’re way out of my league. And Jess? I’ve met that girl. You don’t need to talk, she’ll talk enough for everyone in the room.”

“Mhmmm…”

He pulled her back against his chest and they started moving in slow circles again.

“You’ll have your dream, Y/N. We’ll have a studio downstairs and Mia can live here. You can study something else at the University in the day and I’ll get a job in a few years down the line. We can eat crappy food, play scrabble on weekends and have long walks on the beach. That is normal, right?”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” she mumbled, and her voice was so hopeful, Dean was tempted to take one look at her face to know what she was really thinking.

“Do you want to head home?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “Let’s stay a while. This feels _normal_ and I like it.”

She put her head back against his shoulder as swayed on the same spot. Dean didn’t know what tomorrow held. Hell, all of this was so new to him that he couldn’t even estimate what the next minute was going to bring. But as long as he was with Y/N, he knew he could do it. He could do anything. Dean was happier than he had ever expected to be in his life.

He was learning what he loved, his brother was happy and doing good in life and there was an incredible girl in his arms.

To say he was content would be an understatement.

He was fucking ecstatic.

Dean bent down to kiss Y/N’s forehead. He could get used to it…. in fact, he would be the luckiest guy in the whole wide world, if this unconventional life became his _normal_.

**Author's Note:**

> Please please consider leaving comments. They mean the world to me!


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